A Graduation Joke You Can Drink Out Of

It is the version of a novelty gift that does not become clutter. A mug with a joke on it is used until the joke stops registering, and then it is simply a good cup — which is the ideal end state for anything bought for a one-day occasion. The listing gives it as 16oz glass with a lid, a stainless steel straw and a cleaning brush, so it is a complete piece of drinkware rather than a printed souvenir.

Glass suits the specific life a graduate is entering. The iced-coffee-at-a-desk habit is close to universal among people in their first job or final year, and a lidded glass with a straw is what that habit actually wants — it does not hold flavours the way plastic does, and the lid is the difference between a drink on a desk covered in paperwork and a spill on it.

The price band lets it be the gift you give in addition. Not every graduate in your life warrants a watch, and a colleague's daughter, a cousin or a friend's flatmate sits in an awkward zone where nothing feels right. Something cheap, used daily and marked with the occasion fills that gap better than a card with money in it.

• A graduate setting up a first desk, dorm or office
• The iced coffee drinker, which is most of them
• A small gift for someone outside your immediate family
• Anyone who would rather use a gift than display it

• Used daily instead of occupying a shelf
• Complete with lid, straw and brush
• Inexpensive enough to give alongside something else

The things worth checking before you order — this is where gifts like this most often go wrong.

• Printed decoration on glass is the part that fails first. Repeated dishwasher cycles are what lift and fade printing, so hand washing is the honest advice if the wording is meant to last, whatever the listing permits.
• It is glass, and it is going to a dorm or a shared flat. That is the environment where drinkware has the shortest life expectancy in the world, and an insulated steel tumbler is the more realistic gift for a graduate you know to be heavy-handed.
• The wording ties it to one moment. “The tassel was worth the hassle” is a graduation joke, and unlike a plain glass this will always be the graduation cup — charming for a year, slightly dated by the time they are thirty.
• The listing gives two different sets of dimensions for this cup, which is common on drinkware listings and worth a glance before ordering if the size matters to you. Treat 16oz as the reliable figure.
• Check whether the graduate already drinks from something. Water bottles and tumblers are among the most-gifted objects of the last decade, and a lot of graduates already own three.
• A stainless straw needs the brush to stay clean, and the brush is the part that gets lost. Worth mentioning when you hand it over rather than letting them discover it.