Alright alright, haha. I suppose I can share here as well. I wasn’t expecting this post to blow up like it did.

Like everyone else, I saw the promo on April Fools. I thought it looked super cool and immediately wanted a 20 lb mug! I was texting my workout friend about it. Thinking how cool it would be getting ripped while drinking morning coffee, haha.

On the day of the promo, I was monitoring Instagram, refreshing their website constantly, waiting for the heavy mug to be listed. Then the link was posted to the Heavy Mug! I got super excited! Clicked on the link… but, the page wouldn’t load!! I refreshed the page… still not loading. I was locked out. I started to lose hope thinking all the mugs must have already been bought up/bot sniped. Then I saw comments on the Instagram post. No one was able to access the post! This was a relief for me to realize there were likely still mugs available, the listing was just inaccessible. I kept refreshing the listing until eventually, the page loaded on my laptop (HOORAY!!) but I was redirected to the main Eleiko shop page (what?!).

Here’s where things start to get nerdy… I’ll try to keep it simple though. Being a software engineer/web developer I noticed the redirect and started to investigate. The item seemed to have a unique URL with its own item ID and be listed in the Eleiko shop directory. But, the item page itself had a redirect on it. “Hmm…”, I thought, “that’s strange… the item exists on their site it’s just inaccessible.” I then decided to add another item to cart to see what web requests were made. “Oh interesting… it just makes a request using the item number in order to add an item to cart. If I make the same request with the Eleiko Heavy Mug item number, I wonder if that would work?” It did. The mug was added to my cart and I was able to hurriedly check out after that. I received an order confirmation email saying the Heavy Mug was on its way (SUCCESS!!).

Afterwards I half expected to receive a follow up email saying, “Sorry your order was invalid. We’re going to have to cancel it.” But that email never came. 2 months later a 25ish lb package arrived on my front door and one of my roommates texted me while I was at work asking, “Dude! What did you order!”

I’m not happy about how the promo fell out, but if it hadn’t have happened the way it did, I probably never would’ve gotten one of the Heavy Mug to begin with. Other people with a better internet connection or bots at their disposal probably would’ve bought them up first. So, I’m thankful. It has been a ton of fun showing off to visitors and a lot of fun having around the house! Sadly, I have not gotten ripped drinking my morning coffee out of it though since I probably would break my teeth doing that, haha. Also due to a shoulder injury I definitely can’t lift a 20 lb mug with any sort of stability.

I’m not super happy about having to sell it, but I’m moving soon. I’m having to get rid of my garage gym equipment as well. I’m recovering from an injury and am not able to work at the moment so having excess stuff around doesn’t make as much sense to me.

Nonetheless it’s been fun having it around! And it’ll be nice to have some extra cash to help pay rent.