My dad is an interesting guy.

Back when I lived at home, around late high school age, these really big solid plastic cups started showing up in our cupboards. They were the kind you’d find at some kind of cafeteria. However, the really weird thing is that every single one would have at least one or two different colored pieces of narrow tape wrapped around the circumference of the cup. Green and red were prominent, but other colors were known to show up from time to time. My dad did that. He put the tape on the cups.

He would do it frequently. It got to the point where it wouldn’t be uncommon for one of the cups to have four or five pieces of tape around it. People would come over and visit and see them in the cupboards and inevitably raise an eyebrow. Finally I asked my dad what the deal was with the tape.

He said, “One time there was a guy who worked at a quarry. You know, the place where they mine rocks and break them down into certain sizes and such? Well, anyway, every day when this guy left work to head home, he was pushing a wheelbarrow full of sand. Every day, the quarry’s security guard would stop the guy and search through the sand really thoroughly to make sure that the guy wasn’t stealing anything by hiding it in the sand. Every day he’d search and find nothing, and would let the guy go home. Finally, after the guy worked at the quarry for a number of years, it came time for him to retire. As he was leaving on his last day of work, sure enough, he was pushing a wheelbarrow. The guard stopped him, searched it, and found nothing. He looked up at the guy and said, ‘Level with me here. You’ve been doing this for years and I know you’re stealing something. I just can’t figure out what the heck it is. What is it?’

The man looked back at the security guard and replied, ‘Wheelbarrows.'”

And that, my friends, was my father’s explanation for why there were tape stripes on our cups.

I told you he was an interesting guy.