I really need your help.
Seriously.
I trust you.
I am married to the Contrarian, and that places a special burden upon me as a woman, nay, as a human. I am stressed daily, nay, minute by minute with entanglement in a world that is simply not normal.
This is a world where up can sometimes be sideways, and out is almost always inside out. I have adapted over the years, and can carry off this feat quite well now, few strangers would ever guess that my mind is so twisted with incongruity.
So, why I need you?
Well how do you deal with the cutlery wars in your house? I’m utterly stymied by this family dilemma and look as I may, have been unable to find a good self-help book on the subject. I can but assume that there is some childhood training that I totally missed. I’m the only one on the planet who seems unable to fathom how to deal with this obvious problem.
You have no idea what I’m talking about?
Surely you jest.
You seriously don’t?
Ahhh, well it’s not me then?
Let me explain then.
Our happy home is utterly disturbed on a regular basis by the digging about in the drawer reserved for all things called “eating utensils.” I mean digging. As in pushing aside, throwing spoons into the knives, pawing to the bottom, cursing, growling, and pointed periodical statements such as “where are all the decent spoons in this house?”
Let me back up a bit.
I did not learn of this issue during the early time of our courtship. All those e-mails, phone conversations, leading up to our meeting in February of 1999, gave no clue that forks would come to divide us. Even during the whirlwind weeks of co-habiting, nary a clue could be garnered by the romantic food interludes we enjoyed.
As with all secret nut cases, my husband kept all these things hidden until the ring was squarely implanted on the third finger left hand.
And then it began.
The complaints.
The whining.
“Why don’t we have any decent forks?” he mewed.
“These spoons are the wrong shape!” he exclaimed.
I looked at them each time. Fork = longish rod with four tines. Spoon = longish rod with ovalate shape at the end depressed in the middle for holding liquids.
They seemed fine to me.
But they were not.
No, not by a long shot.
They were “bad” forks and spoons.
Knives, well we don’t even bother with knives. Knives are either sharp or to be tossed. They are either large, or useless. This man takes my biggest chefs knife of some twelve inches to cut a piece of pie. Moreover he doesn’t like knives much. He used to bone hams in a past life, yet he is terrified of them.
“You’re walking!” he screams.
“Yes, I am, I learned that around age one.” I intone.
“You have a knife in your hand–the blade is up. TURN IT DOWN!”, his face turning shades of red I’ve only dreamed of seeing on paint chips.
“Parker, I’m 63 years old. So far I’ve never stabbed myself.”
“THERE’S ALWAYS A FIRST TIME”, he snorts.
But at the table where we consume victuals, he doesn’t have much to say about knives, other than the obvious, “I think we need the steak knives babe, since WE ARE EATING STEAK.” He usually grins broadly following such an exclamation and you can see how proud his mother was when he smiled like that. Time to take the kid off the pot. He’d done his poop.
No, at the table, we reflect on the limitations of our forks and spoons.
And there is no good reason for this.
When we moved from the meadow and I was engaged in the endless task of sorting and packing, I omitted some of the worst offenders from the “stuff going south.” The near round spoon? Out it went. “Ridiculous shape” it was called. “Who can get their mouth around that?” it was taunted.
When we arrived in Las Cruces I planned on a new set of regular stainless steel. We shopped. He picked.
Did you hear me?
HE PICKED.
Has the complaining stopped?
Hell no.
Case in point.
Salad fork.
An innocent piece of cutlery. It sits first in line for forks. To be used for salads, and desserts. Perhaps for appetizers if necessary.
We have some. They come with the “set”.
But the Contrarian cannot use a salad fork.
Why you ask?
Because the handle is too short.
Did you hear that?
THE HANDLE IS TOO SHORT.
That IS what defines it as a salad fork Mr. Contrarian. If the handle were longer it would be a FORK as in DINNER FORK.
“But it makes the food too close to my hand. I don’t like that.” he moans.
How exactly does one answer such a statement?
The soup spoon.
It has a lovely place in the line of cutlery, for using for soup. It allows the slurping of liquids not drunk with enough speed that the entrée doesn’t get cold/burn up awaiting the finishing of the soup course. It is larger than a regular spoon but smaller than a serving spoon.
What’s the matter?
“It’s too large for my mouth!” he laments.
This delicate mouth that I love to kiss is frightened that the one-quarter of an inch increase in width will harm the corners of his delicate lips.
Short of giving this man his food through a feeding tube just what am I to do here?
Signed: desperately seeking food moving tools.
PS: Diego still disdains the use of stainless steel, preferring silver plate or his tongue. I live with a couple of heathens I tell ya!
Existential Ennui 