For Want of a Spoon, a Soup was Almost Lost! by Sandra Russell

For Want of a Spoon, a Soup was Almost Lost!

by Sandra Russell

Oh jeez...I have been trying for the past couple of months to declutter and reorganize. I am limping along with  a dance of two steps forward  and one step back progression. Keeping  domestic scene smooth and simple involved donating an assortment of various household items to friends, family, and charity. Dropped a flatware set for twelve people with the matching serving set with a cousin. The problem was that it looked good in the drawer; but was very unbalanced in the hand. Would fall off the plate and was just difficult to use.

After the last Thanksgiving dinner, the red flags all pointed to 'change it up'. Given that I have some 'good' silverware that I never haul out, I decided the prudent thing to do was, to think 'less is more'. I only had to really have 'everyday' flatware to serve two to four people. The good stuff  then to come out for the couple times of year when trusted friends and family would be assembled for a holiday event. Summer picnics and bar-b-ques could be served with plastic and paper items.

Whew! Okay, now. Started to purchase a place setting at a time, a sort of not 'high end' but not 'low end' (used; 'like new', discounted) service for four. That should do it. My fourth and final, (I think?) place setting arrived today. Oh joy! but then shudder! I realized that one soup spoon was MISSSING!!! from the three previously purchased sets! I tried to think back to when I used it last? Cat food...did I spoon out cat food and leave it on the porch? Could a raccoon have picked it up? I looked up and down the driveway, under the now becoming weed-like hollyhocks out front. I pried apart the wisteria vines choking out the ivy where all are choking the life out of the holly tree  and still no spoon?...Getting tense now.

This is why I can't have good stuff...animals; animals must have taken it. I looked in all the drawers in the kitchen, nah, in the junk drawers, under the armoire/secretary in the dining room. I looked in the vegetable bin, the potlids drawer and the bakeware cupboard. No spoon. Okay, time to get out a yardstick and broom and fish under a few more appliances; stove? Nadda...but wait?! Why is that piece of foil (thought to be a lid from a coffee can} so tough to budge? Reached down and there it was! The backside of the bowl of the spoon shone under the refrigerator...Gag! with biscotti dough still stuck on it. Okay, biscotti was a few days ago. Hmmm?

I should feel ashamed of this neglect. But I was so happy to find it that gladness took over. I washed it and washed it again and wiped dry ‘til it shown like all the others; then counted yet again the orderly and symmetrical state of my flatware drawer. Hooray!

I can relax about that particular obsession for a minute. It is tough to be orderly, to limit the numbers of items that clutter and burden us. But in my case, I can get pretty burdened by one soup spoon. During the hunt, I imagined the soup I would be making soon, and then often in the fall, and how rude it would be for me to invite a couple of friends to have some, then to offer them a plastic spoon...just wouldn't be the same soup.