• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

The Everlasting Mystery Of Teaspoons

Everyone should also have to wait tables for a year, similar to compulsory military duty.

I always say everyone should have to work retail. It might make them a little bit more compassionate.

Does the hot spoon thing work with customers who don't take sugar? I never stir my coffee. Not that I think I would merit the hot spoon treatment of course, I am an absolute delight as a customer, but I was just wondering.
 
Escargot the answer is no nothing like that at all.
 
I got so excited recently, because I was missing a teaspoon and there was no obvious explanation for how it went missing! I looked everywhere it could be. It had been months since I could have accidentally thrown it away, and I'd seen it since then, so it couldn't have been tossed out. I asked out loud for the imps to return it, and hoped to see it in the middle of my living room floor.

False alarm. The next time it rained, I found the spoon in the pocket of my raincoat, where I'd left it that last time it had rained, a couple of weeks before. I'd just forgotten to put it back.

Nothing Ever Happens to Me.
 
I got so excited recently, because I was missing a teaspoon and there was no obvious explanation for how it went missing! I looked everywhere it could be. It had been months since I could have accidentally thrown it away, and I'd seen it since then, so it couldn't have been tossed out. I asked out loud for the imps to return it, and hoped to see it in the middle of my living room floor.

False alarm. The next time it rained, I found the spoon in the pocket of my raincoat, where I'd left it that last time it had rained, a couple of weeks before. I'd just forgotten to put it back.

Nothing Ever Happens to Me.
Ok I'm naïve I know so I'll be the first to ask. What is the relationship between teaspoons and raincoats? Did it simply not want to get wet?
 
Everyone should also have to wait tables for a year, similar to compulsory military duty.
Or work in retail for a year. Or be a teacher/dr/nurse on the front line. One thing you learn quickly - Joe Public is nuts.

I've thought for years no-one should be allowed to be an MP til they have done a set number of requirements like wait tables, work in retail, etc. Volunteer for a year as this, another year as that. And now, add to the list, work for 3 years on a zero hour contract, on minimum wage.

To keep this relevant - my stepmother recently died of dementia. She was diagnosed just a few years ago but we thought she was the proverbial bat's poo at least 30 years back. Now I look back, the first 'symptom' was - around 1983 - I came back from uni 150 miles away, got through the door, went nowhere near the kitchen, sat down and within thirty seconds of walking in she was accusing me of stealing a teaspoon. So maybe they're not all actually MIA..? People just imagine they are.
 
Now I look back, the first 'symptom' was - around 1983 - I came back from uni 150 miles away, got through the door, went nowhere near the kitchen, sat down and within thirty seconds of walking in she was accusing me of stealing a teaspoon.
It sounds distressing for you and your familiy members to experience the acceleration of behavior like that. I hope you all had some good times too, or at least you had someone's moral support!
 
Not naive, just sane.
I take my own tea spoons when I go to cafes so I won't have to use plastic spoons or resiny wood stirrers.
Ha - it's like those word games people use to play on Google. Put 2 or 3 words together and the winner was the one who got zero results from a Google search. You would probably have won with "raincoat" and "teaspoon" prior to your post!
 
It sounds distressing for you and your familiy members to experience the acceleration of behavior like that. I hope you all had some good times too, or at least you had someone's moral support!
LOL. Not with her, no. She was a nightmare from the start. Now she's dead, am waiting for it to properly hit home but so far - nothing. No flashbacks - nowt. We always said she had early onset dementia from when she was in her 40s, seemed obvious. Even when she was so obviously deluded, in her 70s, she was claiming that my dead dad was hanging from a tree in her garden and ringing the police at 2AM, it sitll took the medics months to finally diagnose dementia. Very odd because my degree's essentially in 'Beowulf' - but I was saying it all along...

Those teaspoons, though. Her mother - who also had dementia but not such an early onset - also claimed people stole her spoons. Must be a thing.
 
LOL. Not with her, no. She was a nightmare from the start. Now she's dead, am waiting for it to properly hit home but so far - nothing. No flashbacks - nowt. We always said she had early onset dementia from when she was in her 40s, seemed obvious. Even when she was so obviously deluded, in her 70s, she was claiming that my dead dad was hanging from a tree in her garden and ringing the police at 2AM, it sitll took the medics months to finally diagnose dementia. Very odd because my degree's essentially in 'Beowulf' - but I was saying it all along...

Those teaspoons, though. Her mother - who also had dementia but not such an early onset - also claimed people stole her spoons. Must be a thing.

There can certainly be dementia present in middle-aged people. In a care home where I worked there was a male resident of about 60. He'd been married but in his 40s had met another woman, who was also married, and they each divorced their spouses and set up home together.

This caused trouble in their families. Some of their adult children refused to speak to them again. Then within a few years he began showing signs of dementia, and by the time I met him he was totally helpless - no mobility, unable to speak or to care for himself, couldn't even eat without help.

His loyal second wife visited him every day. What a terrible outcome, after all they'd been through.
 
Ha - it's like those word games people use to play on Google. Put 2 or 3 words together and the winner was the one who got zero results from a Google search. You would probably have won with "raincoat" and "teaspoon" prior to your post!
Not sure if this counts as a hit—there are SPOON brand raincoats . . . so I lose . . . snif :sorry:
https://www.farfetch.com/shopping/women/spoon/trench-raincoat-1/items.aspx

(I don't want to make it a link—that seems too much like advertising. Besides, the clothes on that site look rather ugly. No accounting for taste.)
 
Those teaspoons, though. Her mother - who also had dementia but not such an early onset - also claimed people stole her spoons. Must be a thing.

There's probably some basis for anxiety here though. I remember as a child growing up in Yorkshire how elderly people seemed almost obsessed with things like teaspoons. Thinking about it, the possession of teaspoons and the like was probably regarded as the owner having reached some sort of genteel level way back when , and silver ones would have been incredibly relatively expensive. And of course that generation treasured everything they had, so that the loss of them (whether imagined or not) would have been seen as a blow.
 
There's probably some basis for anxiety here though. I remember as a child growing up in Yorkshire how elderly people seemed almost obsessed with things like teaspoons. Thinking about it, the possession of teaspoons and the like was probably regarded as the owner having reached some sort of genteel level way back when , and silver ones would have been incredibly relatively expensive. And of course that generation treasured everything they had, so that the loss of them (whether imagined or not) would have been seen as a blow.
Yes, that's spot on. 18thC wills and inventories always itemise the silver spoons along with the most valuable household stuff. I suppose my step grandmother was a Victorian and brought up by Victorians - and they weren't so far from those 18thC spoon counters! Also, maybe the practical thing that teaspoons are indeed easy to lose so the first thing someone with paranoia might imagine has been stolen..?

Dug up a silver (hallmarked) teaspoon in the garden, last year. It has a saint or something on the top of it. We washed and sterilised it and now it's on permanent duty in the tea caddy. I wondered who lost that pretty little spoon. Where my house is, was nothing but fields til the 1940s so it's probably a previous tenant...

ETA: Just occurred to me - silver seems to have some superstition attached to it as well. Silver bullets, etc. Maybe silver teaspoons are inherently magic!
 
Nice find. Sounds like an Apostle Spoon. I have one in my teaspoon collection but sadly not silver.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostle_spoon
Ah no, he's not hallmarked - I misremembered. Looks like silver plated. But yes, I think he must be an apostle - he's holding a book but it looks like he's hugging a clipboard. Mine will be a 20thC one, probably - doesn't look like it has much age to it. I wonder if it's a lucky thing to find!
IMG_0067(1).JPG
 
Last edited:
I was wondering if it was the one who you are meant to bury in the garden for a quick house sale?

I'd never heard of this until about 5 years ago. Now it seems to be "something everyone knows about" and "something we've always done". I just couldn't :(
 
I was wondering if it was the one who you are meant to bury in the garden for a quick house sale?

I'd never heard of this until about 5 years ago. Now it seems to be "something everyone knows about" and "something we've always done". I just couldn't :(
Must be the Mandela effect or something. :dunno:
 
I was wondering if it was the one who you are meant to bury in the garden for a quick house sale?

I'd never heard of this until about 5 years ago. Now it seems to be "something everyone knows about" and "something we've always done". I just couldn't :(
IIRC, that's St Joseph and the poor soul is supposed to be buried upside down or face down or something uncomfortable like that.
If it makes you feel any better, I'd never heard of it either until I read about it on the Forteana Forum.

But yes, I think he must be an apostle - he's holding a book but it looks like he's hugging a clipboard.
Sounds like he's the saint of office managers!
 
IIRC, that's St Joseph and the poor soul is supposed to be buried upside down or face down or something uncomfortable like that.
If it makes you feel any better, I'd never heard of it either until I read about it on the Forteana Forum.


Sounds like he's the saint of office managers!
Ah yes, or a parking warden.
 
The teaspoon in the raincoat thing has just reminded me of something.

Years ago Mr Zebra and I went to Washington DC for a holiday. I became quite unnerved throughout the holiday (which was otherwise thoroughly enjoyable) because I always seemed to get picked out for security checks at the airport or museums etc. even though Mr Zebra wasn't. We couldn't figure out why.

At some point after the holiday, when we were back home, I found a teaspoon in a small pocket of the bag I'd taken with me on holiday...

... which was also the bag I used to take to work, where I had my own teaspoon for when I occasionally had yoghurt for lunch (because I didn't like using the work cutlery). I'd completely forgotten it was in there when we'd packed for the holiday.

Long story short... the teaspoon must've been setting off the metal detectors at the airport etc. hence why I kept getting checked.

:meh:
 
Last edited:
The teaspoon in the raincoat thing has just reminded me of something.

Years ago Mr Zebra and I went to Washington DC for a holiday. I became quite unnerved throughout the holiday (which was otherwise thoroughly enjoyable) because I always seemed to get picked out for security checks at the airport or museums etc. even though Mr Zebra wasn't. We couldn't figure out why.

At some point after the holiday, when we were back home, I found a teaspoon in a small pocket of the bag I'd taken with me on holiday...

... which was also the bag I used to take to work, where I had my own teaspoon for when I occasionally had yoghurt for lunch (because I didn't like using the work cutlery). I'd completely forgotten it was in there when we'd packed for the holiday.

Long story short... the teaspoon must've been setting off the metal detectors at the airport etc. hence why I kept getting checked.

:meh:
You'd probably win the Google game referred to above with "Washington DC" and "teaspoon" as well :)
 
Back
Top