JUST A SPOONFUL...

"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."  T.S. Eliot

It is difficult to find quotes about spoons...almost as difficult as it is to find a spoon, these days! This is a pet peeve of mine.  No one uses spoons anymore.  I am so tired of restaurants carefully folding the silverware in your napkin - and when you unroll it - there is no spoon!  I have had to stir my coffee with the end of a fork, which is really weird.  I would like to know the reasoning behind the disappearing spoon. In this fragile economy, perhaps some restaurant owner decided that you could save money if you didn't have to wash spoons, and then his lame idea spread like wildfire.  Maybe spoons are stolen more often than any other piece of silverware - they don't carry the danger of poking or cutting you. But, then again, stealing spoons might be the direct result of never having one in a restaurant when you need it!!!  You could just steal one from somewhere else and carry it around with you.

How many times have you dripped salad dressing on your shirt or tie because you were scooping up the remnants of your salad with a fork?  Okay.  Maybe that has just happened to me.  O'Charley's has the most delicious pecan chicken salad with balsamic vinegar and it is always a challenge to eat all the cranberries in it without getting a spot of the dressing on my shirt.  If I had a spoon - it would be no problem! I know, I'm sure that if I asked the waiter for a spoon, he would be glad to get me one.  They must have a few floating around in the kitchen somewhere.  It is just the principle of the thing.  As a kid, we set the table with a knife, fork, and spoon....even if we weren't serving something "soupy."  When did that change?

Oh Lord...I sound like an old fart. Every time I begin a sentence with "As a kid..." I know I have fallen into the pit of the grumpy old fart.

In these times when the world seems unhappy with everything, I guess complaining about the lack of spoons can be considered ridiculous, at best.  Oh...I have a theory....maybe the Tea Party has confiscated all the spoons!  Just think about it...how can you have a tea party without spoons!  Of course, they would have to be the size of shovels, considering all the crap they are serving up for consumption!  (Hee, Hee...I couldn't resist!)