Fork it Over

On the back wall of our local supermarket, between the milk cases and the pharmacy is a small “Bargain Rack”. Most times the rack is a jumble of discontinued items that would blend in with the twenty-five cent box of just about any garage sale. But once in a great while, some useful bargain can be found on that rack. The other evening was such an occasion as my wife discovered two name brand “service for four” tableware sets. We couldn’t pass up such a find since the knives, forks, and spoons in our drawer now have the weight and feel of small gardening tools. We both agreed that some body-building family who likes a good work-out while they eat can use our old ones, and we purchased the new bargain-ware. How could we have known the frustrating puzzle about to unfold?

At home, I removed the new sets from their boxes straight to the dishwasher because my wife said; “We don’t know the factory workers who boxed these, so I think we should wash them before we use them”. In the meantime I decided to package up our old heavy duty, commercial grade hardware in the new boxes. I counted them out; “one, two, three… and on to eight butter knives, eight soup spoons, eight table spoons, eight salad forks and six dinner forks… What? Six dinner forks?” Without hesitation I searched , dishwasher, drawers, under the couch, high and low and came up, shall I say,  empty handed.

Now what? I sat down with my head in my hands wondering of the possible scenarios in which two forks could come up missing. I came to a sort of “Fork in the Road” of my thoughts… One path would appear to lead toward a theory of the “Lost” or “Misplaced” forks. The other was a path pointing toward a fork thief… or worse… Thieves!  For a moment I ventured down that path of conspiracy, squinting and trying to visualize what kind of scoundrel would break bread with us at our table, then make off with two of our dinner forks as souvenirs? Or could there be two different scoundrels who each pocketed one fork? Several scoundrels… Uh, I mean guests… crossed my mind. I could just see their disgusting, covetous little hands concealing utensils in a dirty napkin and stuffing… Oh, I’m sorry… Guess I got a little carried away there…

“Maybe they’re in our teenage son’s room!”, I had a whim… So I shoved his door open and looked in… “Forget that idea”, I mused…”I’m not even sure I could find the floor in this aftermath”… I wondered if I should call some of his friends though, because I do remember once when a young school mate came to our door and handed me a bowl and a spoon we hadn’t seen in weeks. “Jeff left this at our house”, she said…

The most troubling part of all this to me is trying to figure out what to say to a potential recipient of our old tableware… “Everything’s here except two dinner forks” or “It’s almost a set of service for eight!” or “This is a set of service for six with some spare stuff’… Nothing sounds right or complete… It gives one a sense of helplessness when a card or so is missing from a deck, or a checker or two, or one sock, or two forks… We endure a sort of grief about it…

So if anyone knows where the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle is or the croquet mallet, or any kitchen utensils please… Fork it Over!