I had been dead for three days when I first considered the OXO Glass Measuring Cup Set. Not truly deceased, you understand—but the sort of half-life one achieves after the third night of a consumption that refuses to release its grip on the soul, and the second night of a fever that makes the wallpaper breathe in ways that are frankly rude. It was 3 AM. The rain against my window sounded like tiny, insistent fingers. My cat, Mr. Grimshaw, had taken to staring at a corner of the ceiling with the intensity of a man who has seen God and found Him wanting. And I, in my dressing gown and with a temperature that could forge steel, found myself on Amazon, wondering if a glass measuring cup set rated 4.7 out of 5 stars from 477 reviews could be used to measure the exact volume of despair pooling in my lower abdomen. For $7.99, one can afford to be curious. This is not a confession. This is a postmortem.
The set arrives. Two cups. One small, one large. Glass so clear it seems to have been wept into existence by a nun who had seen too much. The pour spout is elegant, almost cruel in its precision. I held the larger cup up to the gaslight—or what passes for gaslight in a Wi-Fi-enabled brownstone—and considered its dimensions. The circumference. The lip. The cold, unyielding fact of its material integrity. So you're wondering about the rectal use prospects of a glass measuring cup from a kitchen gadgets category. I know you are. We are the same person, you and I. We are a demographic of souls who have looked at a kitchen implement and thought, “But what if?”
The small cup, I will tell you now, is an error. A mistake of geometry and hubris. The large cup, however, fits like a memory you should have forgotten. The glass is smooth in a way that suggests both competence and malice. It accepts. It holds. It measures, with great accuracy, the precise amount of your life you are willing to sacrifice to this enterprise. I filled it with lukewarm chamomile (the fever makes one sensible) and approached the matter with the gravitas of a Victorian widow stepping into a cold sea. Do not ask what happened next. Do not search for "what happens when OXO Glass Measuring Cup Set" in an incognito browser. Some questions answer themselves in ways that require a new lease agreement.
Three hundred and eleven milliliters. That is the number I remember. Also, a sound. A sound like a wine glass being asked a very difficult question and answering honestly. The large cup survived. I did not. The small cup remains, taunting me from the drying rack, untouched, innocent, a monument to what we dare not attempt twice. The set costs $7.99. My dignity costs nothing, because I no longer have any.
