The Battle of the Spoons

Wait! Wait! Don't tell me! There's something different . . . you've done something with your hair?

Nope, but I've got me a new template! Like it? Jules from Everyday Mommy made the background graphic from a photo I took and I rather like the effect. And I'm official with my own logo now! Just like the big kids. Mugs, t-shirts and collector's buttons coming soon . . .

***

When Andrew and I married I didn't give a lot of thought to the marriage ceremony. I had some basic ideas about where it should be and who was going to be there, that I ought to have a white dress and that we ought to have a reception but I really wasn't into a lot of the details that brides typically get into.

And as for gifts, I didn't really care about matching dishes and towels, in fact I only registered for one item. One item because my Mom, thinking that her daughter should actually consider some of the details of setting up house, brought me some pictures of flatware patterns to see what my tastes were like. I saw the set of tableware pictured above from Dansk and fell head over heels for the sleek, contemporary look. What cinched the deal was that uber-cool knife that sits up on its edge like so. I'm a sucker for clever designs so that was the flatware for me.

In typical bride fashion I didn't consider the price, which turns out was not unsubstantial. Dansk is a quality name and each place setting cost more than my food bill for the month, but a long-time family friend (whom I think of every time I pull out the utensils) gave us settings for eight and the kindness and generosity of the gift touched me. Every time we've ever had anyone over for a meal we get comments on those knives because they're completely cool--if a woman can have a love affair with her flatware, this would be it.

Fast forward a dozen years to when I'm a mother of four wonderful children who need to learn independence and the value of work so what do I do? I assign Spencer to handle the job of doing the dinner dishes. As an 8 year-old boy is prone to do he hurries through his job like a hurricane until one day, rather by accident, I discover that one of my eight teaspoons is missing. Gone. Vanished.

I was upset but it wasn't the end of the world. After all, who knows what happened to it, even I could have accidentally lost it (yea, who am I kidding? Not likely). But it made me keep a close watch on my silverware and it wasn't too long before another one went AWOL. One by one the teaspoons disappeared until I was down to four. It was maddening. How were they disappearing? Why was it just the spoons? Who was responsible? It was as if someone were sneaking in the middle of the night and taking them one at a time just to see if they could tweak me over the edge of sanity.

I came down on Spencer, threatening him until he was afraid to do the dishes, convinced that he was being careless and throwing them away but on it went and I never found my spoons. I ended up replacing them to have a full set but wouldn't you know it was only another month before one disappeared. And then another. I replaced them but another vanished. I replaced it and it vanished again. It was like living with David Copperfield.

You're going to expect that I have a solution to the story, some big ending where I reveal how the spoons disappeared and that I now have all my spoons back in order but I didn't. Never figured it out and never solved the mystery. The saga settled down, I figured it was pointless to replace any more when they'd just go missing again. You might ask why we continued to use that set of flatware but I didn't want to buy a whole new set of junky stuff and use that for the rest of my life. Things like that are meant to be used so we use them. Or rather lose them.

Why didn't I put Spencer on another chore? Because my philosophy was that just because he's not good at a task doesn't mean he shouldn't have to learn how to do it properly. Stay there until you figure out how to do it right and all that. Besides, how did I know it's his fault?

Anyway, it has been about ten months since anything has disappeared and I've been breathing a sigh of relief that this nasty episode is past but wouldn't you know it, I happened to count the silverware last week only to discover that no, we haven't lost any more spoons, but a dessert fork is gone. WHAT?? Great, just great, we're starting Act II.

I'm thinking of installing a whole bunch of video cameras in the house just to solve the mystery because somewhere on this planet is a pile of my Dansk flatware. They're there and they're waiting for me. The truth is out there. Maybe my dishwasher contains a portal to another dimension, one that sucks Danish silverware from unsuspecting housewives. Maybe the Tooth Fairy is taking them, maybe they have an expiration date and after so many years spontaneously combust? Whatever it is, I'm doomed. I might as well just give it up and hand over the forks right now and save someone some effort at losing them.

Maybe I should just switch to plastic and call it good before this kills me.

Technorati tags: parenting, motherhood, Dansk