I now own coasters.

They're not fancy, but neither are they leftover AOL CDs. They are items whose entire reason for existing is to hold up glasses of liquid.

The reason I own coasters is that I now own furniture that I care about not getting water rings on. This is new. I have been living my short adult life with Wal-Mart particle board furniture and stuff fished out of dumpsters. I am still just about that broke and that cheap, but I scored some marvelous finds at garage sales this year, chief among them a Singer treadle sewing machine in a nice wooden cabinet. My uncle said that it looks just like my great-grandmother's machine, except it's a little more ornate. It's not functional, so it serves as a conversation piece and telephone table. And it's a very convenient place to set down a drink. So I needed to buy the coasters.

It feels like some kind of rite of passage. Once upon a time, I was oblivious to the existence or purpose of coasters. In recent years, I've become more cognizant of the impropriety of making water rings on other people's furniture. But to make an investment (even of only $1.07) to protect my own furniture -- gee, that's the kind of thing a grown-up would do.