Even though I embrace change, I sometimes worry about unnecessarily upsetting my routine.

In order to make things run smoothly around the house, I have adopted a fairly regular morning ritual. I need to leave the house by a specific time in order to avoid certain hassles on my commute.

This means I have planned out the proper wakeup time and do as many things as possible the night before. If I have to load my iPod or make my lunch in the morning, I run the risk of throwing everything else off kilter.

But I have one change which could make or break everything. I could significantly improve my morning experience or make my ride to work intolerable.

I think I need a new travel mug.

Last summer, I acquired a new coffee delivery system. My old travel mug had been through the ringer – I drove up the street with it sitting on top of the car more than once – and I found a good deal on a mug which would benefit a good cause.

The new mug fit perfectly into my cup holder and kept the coffee warm for the proper amount of time. The opening did not lead to any spillage problems. I had it made.

But over the past few months, I have just not felt right. I have now used a metal travel mug for I don’t know how many years. I keep seeing other kinds of mugs while shopping, opening my eyes to the possibilities out there.

Let’s face it – metal travel mugs aren’t the nicest looking things sometimes. Could I look cooler (OK, I’m not cool now, but let’s just roll with it) if I changed to a new travel mug? Is my metal mug ruining the environment? Does the style of mug really make a difference?

I think “No” would serve as a proper answer to all of those questions, but I still want to make a change. I think I have convinced myself that the metal mug has altered the taste of my coffee.

This, of course, sounds completely absurd, but when I want to justify an important change in my life, absurdity will probably have to come into play at some point. Millions of people use travel mugs with a stainless steel interior, but only mine makes the coffee taste funny once in a while. Yeah, right.

Still, I soldier on. For some reason, I feel like I need to switch to one of those white ceramic-type mugs that can look like a plastic cup. But I need to do some research on their durability.

For all of my problems with my current travel mug style, I did manage to drive almost two blocks with my old mug on top of the car and only lost the handle when it finally fell off the roof. Do the folks making these trendy, eco-friendly mugs take idiots like me into consideration when assessing the durability of their product?

Questions like that one force me to take my time on this decision. I put a lot of work into nailing down my morning schedule. I don’t need to ruin it because I had to clean up shards of my coffee mug from the street.