“Well, do you?” asked the knife.
“You know how to kill a mood,” said the spoon. “We’re finally both clean and alone, I just laid down a fresh napkin, and you have to bring up relatives.”
“So you think they are descended from you?”
“We do not have a common ancestor. Do I look anything like a fork to you?”
“No, sweety. You’re elegant.”
“Damn right I am. Ever seen a fork with trim like mine?”
“The forks in our set are very stylistically—”
“Finish that sentence and see if you don’t sleep on the floor tonight.” The spoon huffed. “Or maybe you want to go sleep with the fork. After all, we’re the same to you!”
“That’s not what I was asking!”
“Is the Menu not good enough for you?”
The knife shook. “The Menu is infallible.”
“Darned shiny it is! And it says nothing about us having common lineage. Silverware has always been laid out this way. There’s nothing more to it.”
"See, that’s a problem. I hear that other tables the fork and knife are man and wife, and the spoon stands alone.”
“You have been fantasizing about forks! It’s the slits up the front, isn’t it? Gets you nice and polished? Is this what the other knives talk about when they're alone in the drawer?”
“I’m just wondering if silverware evolved differently over there."
“They’re savages. Probably get you nice and polished, imagining foreign tables with no napkins. Maybe all silverware evolved from the pins they stick in olives! Dirty pins with no modesty. That doing it for you, Knife?”
“Honeyspoon!”
“Don’t Honeyspoon me! I let it go now and by mid-supper you’ll be moaning about sporks.”
“They’re unexplainable!”
“They’re all plastic! There is no metal spork. It's the missing link in your magical theory that lets you rub up against any old utensil you want.”
The knife sighed.
“I’ll get on the floor…”
“Tell me if you discover any of the plate’s descendents down there, Mr. Paleontologist!”
“Ow!” Robert cried, dropping his knife. It clattered off his lap and to the carpet. He waved his hand, then sucked on his bleeding thumb.
Cheryl tilted her head at him. “Are you okay, honey?”
“Yeah,” Robert said, frowning at his spoon. “No idea what just happened.”
I'm laughing important body parts off... never thought about the evolution of silverware, and surely not about their mating behavior.
ReplyDeleteSimply great!
These are important issues that need to be addressed. The etiquette of table setting. I assume that yopu were of course referring to the dessert spoon (spoonicus triflitops) and not the more pronounced curvature of the soup spoon (spoonicus mulligatawny).
ReplyDeleteI think you could expand this into a much longer peice if you were so minded. Great stuff.
marc nash
And yet it was the dish that ran off with the spoon!
ReplyDeleteOh, the scandal.
SPORKS rule!!! Great piece John, very innovative and clever..
ReplyDelete"...slits up the front.." HA! I cracked up at that, throughout in fact. Fun stuff John!
ReplyDeleteAlone and clean. Fresh napkin. Hah! Very, very funny story.
ReplyDeleteHoneyspoon is a great nickname...
Goes to show, jealousy rears an ugly head everywhere. :)
LOL! That was hilarious! But I agree with the spork thing, all a bit suspicious!
ReplyDeletetruly enjoyable tale!
This one had me laughing in numerous parts. So many great lines! I loved the Honeyspoon nickname. I also loved how you ended it. Well done!
ReplyDelete"It’s the slits up the front, isn’t it?"
ReplyDeleteYes. Yes it is...
It was hilarious the whole way through, but the ending was absolute perfection.
ReplyDeleteI'll never use a spoon again without feeling a little dirty.
Ha ha! Love reading your writing, John. I see forking can get yourself in just as much trouble as spooning.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the others - PERFECT ending.
You keep raising the bar, er, or should I say table.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post. It's high tine we had a debate on this issue.
ReplyDeleteOh my. Very funny.
ReplyDelete"Don’t Honeyspoon me" made me snort.
Sporks are the work of the devil.
Forking brilliant spoonerisms here, John. High entertainment. A cut above... I'll stop there.
ReplyDeleteSimon.
Brilliant! Very Pratchett-esque.
ReplyDeleteWhat's a blogspot question?
The tine is now! Thank you all for the kind words. I'm overjoyed to make so many people laugh with this sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteDavid, in filling out your Blogspot profile you can ask to get an additional and random question. The one about forks and spoons popped up and I decided to go nuts on it.
Very funny! I'll never look at my silverware the same way again. I keep thinking of that line from the nursery rhyme ". . . and the fork ran off with the spoon. . .".
ReplyDeleteHilarious. I love how you got the language of the utensils down. Wonderful.
ReplyDeleteI love spooning.
ReplyDeleteOh. Did I just write that?
I'm not sure which was more disturbing, the story or Sulci's spoon classification..., but I like it!
ReplyDeleteOh, puh-leeze. It's obvious that forks are the result of intelligent design.
ReplyDelete[sorry]
Oh my...the scandal you raise! Hilarious, John! I'm rather partial to sporks - wish they were metal. All-purpose things, you know, kind of like casseroles. Never thought about their possible risque lineage though.
ReplyDeleteI'm a fan of sporks. I don't know why there aren't metal ones. There should be. I'm also a fan of your stories, and this one was a delight.
ReplyDeleteVery very funny. A nice bit of anthropomorphism as well as raising real questions about the evolution debate. Well done.
ReplyDeleteThis is hilarious! I used to always play with knives and forks and spoons as a child actually -- although their conversations weren't half as complicated as this one.
ReplyDeleteYou had me at 'fork'. They are the sexiest tool known the man. LOL. Fantastic. You rock my socks with your tales.
ReplyDeleteyou have like really blown my mind man...
ReplyDelete(But seriously, great story)
Wow, imagine if our silverware really were alive. They've been in my mouth. That would be so awkward.
ReplyDeleteI always thought forks were male and spoons female (isn't it obvious?)but knives are a cut above (like a mind parceling words). The writer is the knife, spearing each word and holding it up for our delectation...time for lunch.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant! looking forward to reading the rest of your material - thanks!
ReplyDelete