This was a story from 2003 which I just came across and thought would be fun to share for good-news-wednesday
Turn off the alarms, I am no longer spoonless.
There was a worrisome period of about one week when I had no spoons, which I use for yogurt or cereal for breakfast and an after-dinner snack.
Cue time travel machine.
Come back with me to a time three months ago.
I am chatting with movers and shakers at city hall and I put out a hand to shake the Hagerstown mayor's hand and feel instead something cold and metallic.
I look down. I m holding a spoon.
"Where is this from?" I ask.
A local restaurant, he says, slipping the spoon back into a suit jacket pocket.
He says he was eating with someone and the thinking was he would grab the check but instead for some reason he pocketed a spoon. Later in the day he reached in his pocket and was surprised to find the pocket had turned into a silverware holder. The mayor asked me to return the spoon for him since he was embarrassed at the accidental shoplifting. I refused saying he must be a grown man (he is in his 60s if not 70s) and own up to his errors.
Since then I started cleaning my apartment and when I got to the kitchen I took a good hard look at my own silverwear. Much of it is more than 10 years old, some hasn't been washed in several years. In a word, it is scary. So I threw away my silverwear and the next day the trash was collected.
No problem, I thought. I have plastic silverwear I can use until I buy new silverwear. That night I pour a bowl of cereal and open a container of yogurt and sit down to watch a movie and eat. Then I open the bag and realize I have plastic forks and knifes but not spoons.
Spoonless I am.
I eat the cereal with a fork. I wait until the yogurt until it turns into liquid form and drink it. It is just not the same. For the next few days as I am served meals at various restaurants I think dark dangerous thoughts. If you serve me a spoon it may just go home with me. Challenged with the theft I could point my spoon at the and suggest he is building up a collection.
But I was served only a fork and knife. Perhaps the waiters knew something was amiss. Perhaps I should have ordered soup. Either way, I stole no spoon and tonite I went to Target and bought new silverwear. Problem solved.
Disclaimer:
Note: no silverwear was stolen or injured for the preparation of the column. And I will remind the mayor tomorrow to return his spoon if he has not done so already. Besides, he is scheduled to testify in a trial next week and wouldnt it be embracing if a spoon missing in action was found on his person or if it set off the metal detector?
