Ask an Admin (Admins being the term for Reddit employees) is a weekly column connecting Redditors and Upvoted readers with the people behind-the-scenes at Reddit. Got a question for Greg the Admin? Email him at askanadmin@reddit.com.

Whose ‘Coffee Makes Me Twerk’ mug is this?

– Reddit users KrispyKrackers & Blabyrinth

Last week, as I was working diligently on Reddit Gifts-y things, minding my own adminny business, when I overheard an intense conversation happening within earshot of my desk. It was Reddit Admins Krispykrackers and Blabyrinth, laughing and discussing (what I assumed was) an issue so perplexing and mind-boggling, that I needed to see myself into the conversation.

“What are you two talking about?” I inquired.

“Look at this cup! Whose cup could this possibly be?” Krispykrackers replied.

The cup in question appeared to be your everyday, run of the mill coffee mug. Then I read what it said on the side: “Coffee makes me twerk.”

I giggled.

“I don’t know,” I replied, “but that’s pretty funny.”

“You have to find out for us Greg—find out whose cup this is! Do it for your Ask an Admin!” Krispy replied.

“Yeah, but that’s just to reply to user questions.”

“Well, we’re both Reddit users, and we’re asking you! Find out whose cup this is!”

So they had me on a technicality.

“Well, hell,” I thought, “if I’m going to do this job, I’ve got to go all in and do it right.”

I was thinking spy cameras, fingerprinting, DNA samples—the works. Then I realized I have, erm, actual real work to be doing, so maybe just keeping an eye out for someone using the cup would make more sense?

Shouldn’t be too difficult. I talk to everyone in the office.

But here’s the thing: I did wait—and I never saw anyone use it. I saw the cup move multiple times in two days, from sink to cupboard, but never actually at someone’s desk or in someone’s hand! This cup was legitimately becoming more of a mystery than I anticipated, and time was running short until this Ask an Admin column was due! I needed to kick it into high gear and begin interrogating my fellow colleagues.

Looking for someone to begin with, I ask the one colleague I interrupt more than anyone else in the office: my desk mate, Reddit user Murielop. “I don’t know whose it is. Maybe it’s MyNameIzKhan. Just a wild guess, in my defense.”

So I turn to Reddit user MyNameIzKhan: “Yes, I’ve seen the cup, but it isn’t mine! I’m not a coffee drinker. If I were you, I would bait it. Put it out in the open, see who goes for it, then drop the cage on whoever grabs it.”

I lay and wait, until I see Maxgprime walk past. I ask him about the cup: “It’s not mine, but I wish it were! If it’s up for grabs, i’ll take it,” he says.

Reddit user jophuds comes to take a break near me. I show him the cup. “Well, could be rram. He likes coffee, and he likes to twerk. Or could be drunken_economist. If it’s not his, he’ll definitely buy one after seeing it.”

I show drunken_economist the cup, “Is this yours?” I ask.

“Yeah, that’s mine.”

“What?! No, really?!” I ask in shock.

“Nahhh, it’s not mine.” Shitposted on again.

Word is getting around the office now that I’m actively searching for the owner of this cup. I go to powerlanguage, aurora-73, alexishensel, nearly everyone! As I slouch back to my desk completely defeated, I get a shout from across the office. “Greg! Did you get my message?” I look up to see up_um0p. I frantically unlock my computer.

“Greg it’s my cup!”

“NO IT’S NOT! Is it really?”

“Yes.”

“You swear!?”

“Yessss, why?”

“Meet with me immediately.”

I tell up_um0p about my efforts and she’s floored, laughing hysterically about the mission I’ve been on. Turns out she got the cup as a Secret Santa gift (go figure), and she has another cup that says Good FUCKING Morning.

She offers to give me photo evidence that it actually is her cup, but I decline—I can’t imagine she’d fess up if it weren’t actually her cup. I tell her now that I’ve found out it’s actually her cup, the whole world is going to know in this column, and she’s fine with it, even offering to take a victory photo:

And that, my dear reader, is the case of Reddit’s mystery twerk cup.