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Thursday, October 3, 2013

Missing Spoons

The spoons are missing.

I've never done an actual inventory and counted spoons before, but I know the number of spoons I personally have bought for this house is well into the double digits. Big spoons. Little spoons. Giant soup spoons. Even a heart-shaped set of measuring spoons And now I can't find any of them.

Confused, I tried to think where all the spoons might have gone. The dishes were all accounted for, so it's safe to assume the spoons didn't elope under a cow-jumped moon. No one had taken pudding to school recently, so I ruled out the possibility that someone's desk was full of forgotten utensils. But we were low of yogurt, and Bug loves to eat his yogurt on the porch.

The porch outside. Made of wood. With cracks between the wood...

You see where I'm going with this.

I went outside to the sunny spot where Bug likes to eat his yogurt and watch the bees flit between the hibiscus and the roses. I looked over the edge of the porch to the damp ground. I checked under the bushes. And, almost inevitably, my gaze was drawn down to a glint of silver shining under the porch. Under the porch that's built up and you can't get under without tearing out slats. That porch.

Yup.

There was a pile of spoons sitting there. I could picture the scene all too easily. The first spoon was dropped by accident. He'd been playing, or maybe the spoon had been laid aside so he could run and then a careless foot kicked it into the crack.

He would have to investigate after that. He's four, after all, and four-year-olds are little scientists. He probably had a branch that he poked the fallen spoon with. Maybe he called his sister over. And then he was distracted by something, too distracted to mention the lost spoon to Mommy.

And, when he went out to eat another yogurt one quiet afternoon after school, he saw the light shattering over the silver. He dropped the second spoon in to give the first a friend. The two spoons hitting together made a noise, and my son loves noises. So other spoons followed.

One by one, day by day, the spoons have migrated from their snug kitchen drawer to the dirt under the porch, a gift for a future archeologist or - more likely - someone clearing the wreckage after the next hurricane blows through.

Meanwhile, I'm left eating my ice cream with a fork.

1 comment:

  1. My spoons disappeared under mysterious circumstances not long after my three year old began daycare. We went from 10 to 2 spoons in a months time. My husband caught the culprit throwing a spoon away after eatting a yogurt cup. Her daycare used plastic spoons and taught her well to throw them away after a snack!

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