The Spoon

My mom gave me a set of silver plate cutlery that had belonged to my grandmother. Or so she claimed. It could very well be a set of silver plate cutlery that she picked up at a thrift store at some point in time. Regardless, I've always liked the set.
The set, however, is incomplete. So about 9 years ago I set out to find the missing pieces. I searched places like Ebay. I did find a few of the missing pieces on Ebay. I still had only one bowl style soup spoon which I prefer to the other other kind. Finally I found a few in a lot. In order to get them I had to purchase a lot which included some silver plate iced tea spoons that appeared bent, 3 random sugar spoons with most of the silver plate worn off, and a teaspoon, the pattern to which I could not quite make out.
I had the winning bid. I think I may have had the only bid.
The package arrived and I was happy to see my bowl style soup spoons. Perfect. I've used the bent iced tea spoons once or twice in the last nine years. Every now and again I need a long spoon to capture the last olive.
The last spoon took on a life of its own.

This spoon has an embossed portrait of an old woman on the top of the spoon. She kind of looks like the woman on the Grandmother's Molasses label. But its not her. Then, on the stem of the spoon, there is a date: 1913-1938.

There are no other markings. At first I was amused by the hideous spoon with the old woman who was apparently 25. Jeff and I concocted stories about the old woman. Eventually we referred to the spoon as the dead grandmother spoon. We had decided that the most legitimate of our concocted stories included the information that this woman was being honored posthumously.

As it turns out I didn't like eating with the dead grandmother spoon. The silver plate is worn and I don't like eating on worn silver plate. I also am not terribly fond of the dead grandmother looking at me while I'm eating.

Anytime Jeff gave me that particular spoon I'd groan.

Eventually Jeff decided he didn't like the spoon either.

We concluded that if we accidentally got the dead grandmother spoon we'd have bad luck.

Jeff wanted to take the dead grandmother spoon out of rotation. But I thought that was akin to cheating.

The dead grandmother spoon stays.

As the kids got older we began to make the shift from plastic cutlery, to licensed character cutlery, to solid color children's cutlery, to our own cutlery.

Holden noticed my horror if I ever ended up with the dead grandmother spoon. ( We didn't call it that in front of him, I just alluded to my forthcoming bad luck). Holden noticed Jeff's reaction to the dead grandmother spoon. He was intrigued by this spoon that seemed to indicate whether or not you were loved.

The other night after dinner we had ice cream. Holden got the spoon. This happenstance was not premeditated. Jeff simply doesn't notice things. But Holden was aghast.

WHAT? I got the NO LOVE spoon?? DADDY! I need a different spoon!

And the saga continues.