A number of years ago I attended a Satellite Communications course to learn about a new satellite system being built for our company. The course was several weeks long and during that time, we developed a class “logo.” All the items in the logo had a specific meaning for the 7 or 8 members of the class. One prominent figure was Mickey Mouse. Maybe sometime I’ll do an entry here explaining the rationale behind all the symbols — but for now let’s concentrate on Mickey.
One of the members of the class was Mike, who just happened to be a very good friend and was best man at our wedding. After the class had ended, Mike was assigned to Tokyo. While he was there, he decided to have coffee cups made with the logo we had come up with during the class on the front and our names on the back.
When Claire heard about this, she said she wanted a cup too. We tried to explain that the cups were being made only for members of the class — since she didn’t attend, she wasn’t eligible to get a cup. Well, that argument didn’t get very far, so Mike decided to have her a “special” cup made. At the time, Claire had long blond hair… so Mike’s plan was to have the logo on Claire’s cup have a picture of Mickey Mouse with long blond hair. We thought this would be pretty funny.
But it turns our that the shop in Tokyo that was making the cups refused to alter the logo by adding blond hair to Mickey Mouse.
I’m sure there were things then, and still are today, that are sacred in Japan — but who knew Mickey Mouse would be one of them. Despite many discussions, Mike gave up — the shop owners simply would not put blond hair on Mickey Mouse. So Mike told me that he couldn’t get Claire a cup and he just left it up to me to figure out how to tell Claire she wasn’t getting a cup.
But — when Mike went to pick up the cups, the shop had indeed made a cup for Claire. They had modified the logo, but not like we wanted…. they refused to put blond hair on Mickey — they just removed him entirely and replaced him with someone that looked more like Goldilocks.
You can check out the pictures — the top cup is mine with the original logo, the bottom picture shows Claire’s cup… the cups are now almost 50 years old. I wonder if that cup shop is still in business and if they would be more receptive giving Mickey a wig today?
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