I'm glad I inherited my mum's stress response—incessant cleaning and tidying—rather than my dad's, which was going outside and throwing his coffee mug as far as he could and then sitting alone for a few hours.
My brother got both: I remember one time he was rage vacuuming and the cord got tangled and he karate kicked that machine in half like he was Bruce Lee.
My brother had no formal karate training, but in that moment, he summoned perfect form from somewhere deep inside himself. He was like those people who wake up from comas and can speak fluent Spanish all of a sudden.
My dad wishes you to know that while he did once Hail Mary his coffee mug into the trees, it was because he was drinking his coffee on the front lawn, as you do, and some sloshed on his hand, and his subsequent launching of the mug was a burn response, not a stress response.
The only other time I saw a coffee mug in flight was during a fight with the football team at Bishop's over the cafeteria jukebox, when I took one right between the eyes, and I can tell you that a mug is basically a rock if it's thrown hard enough. But that's another story.
I can't verify my dad's account. All I remember is hearing his telltale holler, looking out the window, and seeing his coffee mug entering low-Earth orbit, carried by his screams beyond the clawing reach of gravity. Then he stayed outside until dark.
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