Glaze for Days: It Pays

"Thank you for your custom, sir!", she offered cheerily, "Here's your free fart cup". I looked at the small half ounce foam cup she placed through the gap under the plexiglass, white with a single brown heart printed on the side. "My what?" I said, squinting at her plastic smile.

“Art cup,” she cleared up. I swore she said something else, but I might have misheard her the first time. What an interesting cup with a single, teeny, tiny brown heart on the side! I wondered what it was for. Then I wondered why it smelled bad.

"You know," she said, "if you use an unglazed mug for coffee, the mug will be fine, but if you put milk in it, the milk will seep into the porous surface of the clay and go rancid." The stench from the mug drifted into my nose despite my best efforts to avoid it. "Smell it, Bob!"

“Well, knowing that many people including me enjoy milk in coffee, did you think it might be a good idea to glaze the mugs you make, Deborah?” He stormed out of the kitchen and she heard the front door slam.

She stood there for what felt like an eternity, then managed to snap out of it. Glazing your mugs? Now that’s a million-dollar idea. And that’s just what she did. Her mugs were so shiny you could see your own reflection on the surface. From then on her pottery sold like hotcakes.

From a million-dollar idea, she grew a million dollar business. She got her brand: Mugs A-glazin’, into every Target, Bed Bath-N-Beyond, and Walmart from the US to China. She finally was the company with the coffee cup to beat!