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The Everlasting Mystery Of Teaspoons

I was sitting in my armchair last month examining a small coin when it dropped into my lap and vanished. Gingerly getting up I searched the fluffy cushion - nope - then removed the seat cushion - nope - so stuck my hand down the sides to springs level. Retrieved a small nutcracker (70's ?), a slice of hard cheese, the coin and a spoon-spatula that went missing two years ago. The spoon-spatula lived in my side pocket and was used to stir my latte whilst the spatula end was employed as a flat screwdriver. A very pleasing discovery.
I had my car cleaned and the interior hoovered today - they did a good job. Got home and found a latte spoon on the back seat that had obviously been found when the seats were moved forwards and mats shaken. This spoon had been a replacement for the spoon-spatula lost down the armchair until it disappeared from my side pocket about nine months ago.
 
Bad Bungle said:
I was sitting in my armchair last month examining a small coin when it dropped into my lap and vanished. Gingerly getting up I searched the fluffy cushion - nope - then removed the seat cushion - nope - so stuck my hand down the sides to springs level. Retrieved a small nutcracker (70's ?), a slice of hard cheese, the coin and a spoon-spatula that went missing two years ago. The spoon-spatula lived in my side pocket and was used to stir my latte whilst the spatula end was employed as a flat screwdriver. A very pleasing discovery.
I had my car cleaned and the interior hoovered today - they did a good job. Got home and found a latte spoon on the back seat that had obviously been found when the seats were moved forwards and mats shaken. This spoon had been a replacement for the spoon-spatula lost down the armchair until it disappeared from my side pocket about nine months ago.
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Those spoons returned from the spoon dimension (where all spoons go when lost).
 
Do they go to the same place as other cutlery?
I'm missing a couple of teaspoons now and a sharp cutting knife as well as some time ago a really sharp old boning knife.
I suppose they could have fallen into the garbage bag but I miss them.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Those spoons returned from the spoon dimension (where all spoons go when lost).
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Clearly it must depend upon rotational speed, and direction, at the point of disappearance. And perhaps also a capacity factor (smaller spoons appear to be more liminal than larger ones).

I've also theorised that the extent to which they're used, when being stirred round&round, might store a latent intramolecular valency that somehow makes them fade when viewed horizontally at rest (this probably isn't intended to not be a wind-up)

Bad Bungle said:
The spoon-spatula lived in my side pocket and was used to stir my latte whilst the spatula end was employed as a flat screwdriver.
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I find myself inescapably drawn to your evidentially-deterministic lifestyle, and may wish to serve for a probationary period as your acolyte. Do you have any plans for world domination or commercial takeovers? Don't give details here, I'm confident I know enough already.

Iris said:
I suppose they could have fallen into the garbage bag but I miss them
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You need to install some privately-owned CCTV, and then to be prepared for a shock when you discover what you're getting up to whilst sleep-walking. That mud on your slippers and the bus-ticket in your pyjamas pocket never got there themselves: just saying.

escargot said:
hard cheese
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Does anyone under half a century of age ever use this ancient anglospheric aphorism? I'd like to think so.

maximus otter said:
spilled milk, ca. 1992
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Cried over? Or not- I wonder....

(so saying, the market viability of armchair cheese production is possibly worth considering: there may be a recliner stilton waiting to be discovered, or a two-seater wensleydale)

Now that I've given you all the scoop on this, and more, I'll stop stirring.
 
Ermintruder said:
Clearly it must depend upon rotational speed, and direction, at the point of disappearance. And perhaps also a capacity factor (smaller spoons appear to be more liminal than larger ones).

I've also theorised that the extent to which they're used, when being stirred round&round, might store a latent intramolecular valency that somehow makes them fade when viewed horizontally at rest (this probably isn't intended to not be a wind-up)


I find myself inescapably drawn to your evidentially-deterministic lifestyle, and may wish to serve for a probationary period as your acolyte. Do you have any plans for world domination or commercial takeovers? Don't give details here, I'm confident I know enough already.


You need to install some privately-owned CCTV, and then to be prepared for a shock when you discover what you're getting up to whilst sleep-walking. That mud on your slippers and the bus-ticket in your pyjamas pocket never got there themselves: just saying.


Does anyone under half a century of age ever use this ancient anglospheric aphorism? I'd like to think so.


Cried over? Or not- I wonder....

(so saying, the market viability of armchair cheese production is possibly worth considering: there may be a recliner stilton waiting to be discovered, or a two-seater wensleydale)

Now that I've given you all the scoop on this, and more, I'll stop stirring.
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Welcome back!
 
Ermintruder said:
Clearly it must depend upon rotational speed, and direction, at the point of disappearance. And perhaps also a capacity factor (smaller spoons appear to be more liminal than larger ones).

I've also theorised that the extent to which they're used, when being stirred round&round, might store a latent intramolecular valency that somehow makes them fade when viewed horizontally at rest (this probably isn't intended to not be a wind-up)
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Perhaps the spoons that do this have been stirred 'widdershins'?
 
Iris said:
I'm missing a couple of teaspoons now and a sharp cutting knife as well as some time ago a really sharp old boning knife.
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How comfortable is your armchair ?
Oh and while I'm here, may I clarify that the use of my spoon-spatula to stir my latte whilst employing the spatula end as a flat screwdriver was not concurrent.
 
They used to disappear in the droves at work from the kitchen, we had no idea what was happening to them, we are talking in the double figures, we were sick of buying them, then someone let slip what was happening, the staff were using them for the yogurts then just throwing them in the bin with the empty yogurt pots, and i kid you not, sometimes i would come in and get the teaspoons ready for the trolley and someone, the dirty gits, had licked the teaspoon then put it in the stack of clean ones, i knew this because there was still residue on it. I think these people were dragged up
 
AngelChat said:
My Grandad had a teaspoon in which he took great delight. Whenever anyone called round for tea, rather than putting their sugar in for them, he'd make sure this precious spoon was in the sugar bowl on the tray with the cup(s) of tea and/or coffee and wait expectantly.

Without fail this teaspoon created a reaction, and he and I would fall about laughing as the person attempting to sweeten their beverage struggled to get any sugar onto the spoon - before realising there was a hole in the middle of it which the sugar just ran straight through and back into the bowl :rollingw:
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I gave my kids trick teaspoons for xmas a while back. You fill them with sugar for your drink and some runs out through carefully-placed holes leaving a skull shape!
 
Shady said:
They used to disappear in the droves at work from the kitchen, we had no idea what was happening to them, we are talking in the double figures, we were sick of buying them, then someone let slip what was happening, the staff were using them for the yogurts then just throwing them in the bin with the empty yogurt pots, and i kid you not, sometimes i would come in and get the teaspoons ready for the trolley and someone, the dirty gits, had licked the teaspoon then put it in the stack of clean ones, i knew this because there was still residue on it. I think these people were dragged up
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Reminds me of my Butlins tableware experience, last dredged up on this very thread in May last year -

Went on holiday to Butlins years ago, noticed cutlery items on the floor between the cooker and cabinet. How strange!

Making the kids' tea later I put a spoon down on top of the cooker for a couple of minutes, then picked it up - hot, YOW! - and flung it down the side of the cooker with all the others. Mystery solved.
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I think the yoghurt/bin interface theory probably accounts for why it tends to be small spoons that go adrift.

Doesn't explain my mysteriously appearing spoon though.

When I moved house, I bought LOADS of new teaspoons. I have not counted them, I still seem to have loads but they could be drifting off in their ones and twos, as yet undetected by me... this will not become apparent until I am down to my last half dozen.
 
T'other day we came across a set of four new unused teaspoons still with their label wrapped around them, at the back of a cupboard which doesn't house any cutlery or tableware.

Presumably we bought them at some point, but neither of us really remembers. Or in fact remembers at all, actually.

So if anyone is missing a set of Asda smartprice teaspoons...
 
Schrodinger's Zebra said:
So if anyone is missing a set of Asda smartprice teaspoons...
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We are now reduced to just TWO (yes 2) teaspoons in our entire house.

I have not got a damn clue as to where they're all going to.....seriously, there's a Louis Theroux documentary almost 'oven ready' at our house (thank you Boris....yes, I shall unwillingly offer-up your mediocre metaphor).

My obvious suspicion was that some were making it out over the wall via binned yoghurt pots, but that's impossible, we wash & recycle (that applies to both yoghurt pots & ourselves, I suppose).

Guests are also off the hook, as we haven't had any in our house since George VI was still on the throne (well, it feels like that). Plus it's not as if they were exquisite silver arcs of cutlerial delight, more like half-bent corroded shards of grey tin.

Somebody must know what the hell's going on....
 
Ermintruder said:
We are now reduced to just TWO (yes 2) teaspoons in our entire house.
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Oooops p'raps shouldn't admit it but there are far more teaspoons in the cultlery draw (the space for them has overflowed into the desert spoons division and even the knife and fork ones) than I ever remember buying or being given! However the ones I do remember having, some cheapish apostle spoons, have dissappeared.:oops:

,Clearly some of them must be yours as we are connected via this fortean thread soooo how shall we take it from here? Should I send some of them to you or leave them to their own devices, doing what teaspoons do?

Sollywos x
 
Sollywos said:
but there are far more teaspoons..... than I ever remember buying or being given!
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Correlation doesn't always equal causation, but, I'd say we've lost at least....eight, from here. So if you've gained anywhere between half-a-dozen, and double figures, you could be a suspect. Book 'em, Dano!!

Or...as a defence, perhaps you'll maybe try and put the blame on your drawers. If they go & do a runner, we'll know they've got something to hide.

Also: If the first digit of the second part of both our respective postcodes is divisible by 0.5 times 2, squared (obvious isogeostatic node indicator, really, since the shared spoon differential looks to be a common integer of close to the same value, and, both start-sets of spoons did commence their purchased existence at these respective locations during, or about, the same timeframe: and that's irrespective of whether they were bought via Amazon, Tesco click+collect or inherited from your Aunt's after they cleared the house).

Sollywos said:
some cheapish apostle spoons,
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I beg your...what? Saints preserve us, I'll have you know that my spoons were entirely secular whilst they were still part of my family silver! If they hadn't desserted me, I'd not have this on my plate!!

Sollywos said:
Clearly some of them must be yours as we are connected via this fortean thread soooo how shall we take it from here?
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This has all the hallmarks of an inside job...do we share the same staff? I've a Mrs Hudson, who sometimes sees to my scullery of a weekday morn, does she do you too? Next time I see her, I shall whip out my magnet, and see if there's any unexpected attraction.
Sollywos said:
soooo how shall we take it from here? Should I send some of them to you or leave them to their own devices
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I'm not really sure how we should handle this. We could agree shared visitation rights, on a rotational basis, but that's not as sweet as it sounds. Like it or lump it, we'll need to see if, as you say, when we
Sollywos said:
leave them to their own devices, doing what teaspoons do?
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.... they bilaterally redistribute themselves based upon the recommeded place-setting canteen establishment strengths as outlined in Mrs Beeton's Cookbook (Mrs Beeton is possibly a friend of Mrs Hudson....aha!....do we now have a mechanism, if not yet either a means nor motive?)
 
IbisNibs said:
Only the most privileged people can inspect my drawers! Hands off my drawers!
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18709_114609092312_resize_96.jpg
 
Ermintruder said:
.... they bilaterally redistribute themselves based upon the recommeded place-setting canteen establishment strengths as outlined in Mrs Beeton's Cookbook (Mrs Beeton is possibly a friend of Mrs Hudson....aha!....do we now have a mechanism, if not yet either a means nor motive?)
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Perhaps they’re related? They have the same first name?
 
I did catch a couple of spoons making a bid for escape the other day. They live now, captive, in an old mug on the top of the microwave (because it's the best way to keep them under my eye). I thought I was a few down and further investigation revealed that two spoons had found their way down between the microwave and the kitchen wall. I can only presume that I'm not being precise enough when I put them back into the mug.

Or they are crawling towards freedom.
 
Ermintruder said:
Also: If the first digit of the second part of both our respective postcodes is divisible by 0.5 times 2, squared (obvious isogeostatic node indicator, really, since the shared spoon differential looks to be a common integer of close to the same value, and, both start-sets of spoons did commence their purchased existence at these respective locations during, or about, the same timeframe: and that's irrespective of whether they were bought via Amazon, Tesco click+collect or inherited from your Aunt's after they cleared the house).
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Sounds about right ... um I think!

Ermintruder said:
I beg your...what? Saints preserve us, I'll have you know that my spoons were entirely secular whilst they were still part of my family silver! If they hadn't desserted me, I'd not have this on my plate!!
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Sounds like you are being punished for your non belief :evillaugh:

Much as it's fun to speculate on I know we are all striving for a rational answer to this perplexing problem. So I've looked back over some previous posts and here is a possible explaination for my surfeit. It doesn't explain everything though.

Way back in the late nineties I had student lodgers so I'm guessing that I must have rescued the spoons from the yoghurt pots in the bin. I don't consciously remember doing so mind but it's the sort of thing I would have done I'm sure. But why, after all these years, and three house moves, have I only just noticed all the extras? I s'pose it was visualising your lonely 2 teaspoons that the stark contrast with my own cultlery drawer hit me!

Nah that's not half as much fun as speculating on shared invisible domestics and the like! So yep we'll just leave them to make the next move. :)

And about the drawers don't any of you dare use your remote viewing techniques to look into mine ..... none of them OK?

Sollywos x
 
Sollywos said:
Sounds about right ... um I think!



Sounds like you are being punished for your non belief :evillaugh:

Much as it's fun to speculate on I know we are all striving for a rational answer to this perplexing problem. So I've looked back over some previous posts and here is a possible explaination for my surfeit. It doesn't explain everything though.

Way back in the late nineties I had student lodgers so I'm guessing that I must have rescued the spoons from the yoghurt pots in the bin. I don't consciously remember doing so mind but it's the sort of thing I would have done I'm sure. But why, after all these years, and three house moves, have I only just noticed all the extras? I s'pose it was visualising your lonely 2 teaspoons that the stark contrast with my own cultlery drawer hit me!

Nah that's not half as much fun as speculating on shared invisible domestics and the like! So yep we'll just leave them to make the next move. :)

And about the drawers don't any of you dare use your remote viewing techniques to look into mine ..... none of them OK?

Sollywos x
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Strangely, the teaspoons here have remained in place for some considerable time. I suspect Ms Petes has given them one of her "don't even think about it" looks and they're sitting there trembling in the drawer.
 
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