Why Navy sailors love a filthy coffee mug

LTC Eugene Chu You Have a Death Wish? Clean that Cup?

LTC Eugene Chu so no one else will use it...
..."Athletes on a hot streak or headed to the playoffs in a given sport oftentimes opt out of shaving for fear of interrupting a routine that may throw a wrench into success. Such superstitions, however, are not limited to the participants of any particular sport.

Sailors, for example, but more specifically those those who have achieved the rank of chief, have one superstition that extends into the unsanitary. They never clean their coffee mugs.

The first time I learned of this I was 23 and working in an office in Washington. The director, a Navy veteran whose cubicle I shared, had a note stuck to his mug that read, “Don’t wash me.”

When I inquired, he informed me that it was something he picked up as a sailor. He’d done this with his black coffee for so long, in fact, that he’d simply grown to enjoy the taste of the weeks, months, or years old residue.

“It adds a lot of flavor,” he said.

“Gross,” I thought, shrugging it off — until now.

Sailors, as it turns out, have an extensive history of keeping coffee cups as grimy as can be. The explanations for doing so, meanwhile, are all over the map.

Some internet users suggest it’s bad luck, others say the dirtiness of the mug is a sign of seniority, while there are also those who simply believe it’s a matter of taste.

“You clean a mug of one, it’s a death sentence for that person,” wrote one Reddit poster about taking dish soap to a sailor’s treasured coffee chalice."...