BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Joe_F
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 08:16 PM

I still have a teaspoon from my childhood in Vermont. The silver plate is mostly worn off. It has an F stamped on it. Thus, tho it is a teaspoon, it is the negation of a T-spoon.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 03:14 PM

Or perhaps study the migratory patterns of spoon players. Where is Dame Pattie EPNS? If ever there was a Mudcat expert on spoons, certainly she must be it.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 11:55 AM

This thread has been fun to read. My own theory is that multiple people are involved in vanishing spoons and socks. I live alone and mlne don't disappear. Get rid of the people and you'll hang on to what you've got.

Paring knives, however...

And knives with bent tips- what's up with that? Couldn't be that I on occasion have used a knife to punch a hole, could it?

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 11:27 AM

Not so sure about that on a cold evening all kinds of things slip down the back of sofas, socks, toys, money, that missing CD, spoons......

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: GUEST,VaTam lurking while working
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 10:07 AM

The title of the case study to which I linked (The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute) indicates that further research should be done on the hemispheric relationship to teaspoon displacement.

Could it be that colder climates are less inclined to displacement? Is there possibly a migratory pattern at play?

Oh and I mustn't forget Mr. Salad Fingers and his affinity for Rusty Spoons

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 09:28 AM

Replaced by stirrers I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: SINSULL
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 09:08 AM

Family tradition - a spoon jar on the dining room table. Nana Sullivan's original spoon jar had a motto - "Cheer up the worst is yet to come." Mine is Centennial from a beer festival. Lots of spoons at hand all the time.
Now I wish someone could tell me what happened to all my cake forks. Gone. Four of twelve left. Someday I will find them cowering a corner with all the unmatched socks.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: GUEST,VaTam sans teaspoon
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 08:57 AM

Here at work, we are experiencing a teaspoon crisis. An APB was sent building wide via email offering a teaspoon amnesty.

Immediately, I wondered has there been any research on the phenomena of Workplace Teaspoon Displacement.

My efforts were quickly rewarded with this case study conducted in January 2004.

And how gratifying it was for me to discover that Mudcat considered the problem a full month before the study began.

Way to go, my friends.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Dec 03 - 02:37 AM

My father was quite a fisherman, so I always said he was born with a spoon in his mouth. ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Gurney
Date: 17 Dec 03 - 02:12 AM

Mooh could be right. The best pike-fishing lure I ever had was made from a modified teaspoon. Not one of those piddly little modern teaspoon, but one of the old 5ml ones.

As to the missing socks, I suggest that if you pile a big stack of washing on top of the machine and then push it down into the drum, just occasionally a sock will slither ( I use the word deliberately ) between the drums, where it finds its way eventually into the water pump. The repairman will hand it back to you, often minced.
Would every persom responsible for the problem admit it? Naah.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 08:08 PM

Joybell

Those rich kids used to be born in Private Hospitals (Australian Joke!), but now that the Govt is encouraging everybody to join the Private Health System, their parents are rich enough to have their kids born at home. Funny thing that, when my father was born at home in the 1920's, only the poor had their kids born at home...


Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Joybell
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 05:09 PM

Oh this is getting so heavy. But I like it! What a great idea McGrath.
When poeple born with a Silver spoon in their mouths die, where do their spoons go? Are they changed to Gold if they've been very, very good?
I worked in maternity wards a bit. Must have been in the wrong hospitals. Never saw a baby born with a silver spoon in its mouth! I'd have remembered.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 05:00 PM

When you got sacked they'd have a thing in which your teaspoon was ceremonially removed from round your neck and probably broken, or at least bent out of shape.

Perhaps they'd leave you alone with a staple gun and give you a chance to do the decent thing. Or in a Japanese office it'd be a paper knife or maybe an electric shredder.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 03:08 PM

Well then isn't it obvious - all the piggy wigs have taken the spoons and made them into rings to replace the one bought by the owl!

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 01:21 PM

FYI--

The Owl and the Pussycat

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
    In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
    Wrapped up in a five pound-note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
    And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
    What a beautiful Pussy you are,
            You are,
            You are!
    What a beautiful Pussy you are.'

Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl,
    How charmingly sweet you sing.
O let us be married, too long have we tarried,
    But what shall we do for a ring?'
They sailed away for a year and a day,
    To the land where the Bong-tree grows,
And there in the wood a Piggy-wig stood,
    With a ring in the end of his nose,
            His nose,
            His nose!
    With a ring in the end of his nose.

'Dear Pig, are you willing, to sell for one shilling
    Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'
So they took it away, and were married next day,
    By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
    Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
    They danced by the light of the moon,
            The moon,
            The moon!
    They danced by the light of the moon.

    -- Edward Lear

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Kim C
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 01:12 PM

This isn't just in the UK. This happened at our office - once with forks, once with spoons.

Then the building management changed the cleaning service.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: fogie
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 11:52 AM

Runcible spoons are spoons that feed you themselves, ie without need to hold them. They are the poltergeist of the spoon world. I am very wary of them, and never count them - anyway you cant buy them these days for love nor money.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 11:29 AM

Spoon Drains are useful for draining boggy ground.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Joe_F
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 09:35 AM

You *stir* coffee with a teaspoon. You *measure out* coffee (or, according to Mr Eliot, your life) with a coffee spoon.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 08:13 AM

Guest...

is it any old spoon that causes offence?

Ella

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: JennieG
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 12:11 AM

If the missing teaspoons eventually turn into dessert spoons, then larger spoons, then ladles.......

where do the holes come from in those big strainer spoons? (I think they are properly called 'runcible spoons' as in "The Owl and the Pussycat"). Is it something to do with the black holes in space?

Never mind the odd socks by the sides of the road - in my part of the world one can often see a pair of shoes hanging by the laces off the electric wires over the road. Are they on their way up or down?
Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 12:05 AM

Where I come from if you wear a spoon an a chain round your neck you get harassed by the gendarmerie.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 12:04 AM

My house has tile floors, so socks, shoes, thongs, slippers, SOMETHING always has to be ready for stepping into for several months of the year. I hate wall-to-wall carpeting, so we have to be prepared to accomodate the chill one gets from tile. As a consequence we do a pretty good job of keeping matched sets of footgear.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Mooh
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 11:39 PM

Joybell...Good idea, LOL!

On one of my jobs some bozo invariably leaves a half full cup of coffee where everyone else has to either work around it or move it. Same person, same cup, same place, every day. I wonder what they pay for therapy 'cause it ain't working.

I looked today, not a single silver spoon in the drawer, sink, or elsewhere. Too bad, they make pretty reflective fishing lures.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Cluin
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 10:52 PM

It always seems that coffee heated in the microwave cools faster.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Joybell
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 04:55 PM

Mooh, Could you give each person their own teaspoon on a chain and hang it around their necks? Getting out again would require them to give up the spoon-on-a-chain, maybe with the use of one of those electronic screener devices like the ones in shops.

I don't think we should, any of us, get too complacent about relacement teaspoons always being available. Remember the Passenger Pidgeon!!

On a related subject inspired by Stilly River's sock - Why doesn't the Shoe Faerie collect, and take care of, all those single shoes that lie forlornly on the side of every road?

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 02:54 PM

re: cooling rates of coffee, etc. (and you're welcome, Padre Tom, I knew my brilliant ingenuity would not be lost on everyone..*grin*)

since I do not put milk/cream in MY coffee, I do not have that extra cooling effect to deal with, but I DO warm the cup first, and use an electric cup warmer as I drink...and if I feel the need 20 seconds in a microwave restores lost heat quite efficiently....and I'd LOVE to the test results showing just how MUCH heat is lost using my method rather than 'stirring after the fact'. Now if you are in an office, using styrofoam or paper cups, it may skew the results, but perhaps controlled experiments are in order!

any or all of those tricks are, to me, preferable to messy sugar bowls and/or constant spoon washing....but, hey...I'm easy. If you come visit me, you may have a spoon of your own with coffee or tea.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: fogie
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 12:45 PM

The natural life history of spoons begins when coffee spoons suddenly appear as in a big bang, in hardware stores, and someone buys them, they then grow in sudden temporal jumps into teaspoons and dessert spoons, then serving spoons, and in middle age become either ladles, or metal frying pans, depending on the gender. This can take years, and I'm not sure what happens to them after this. Just count the various spoon-forms in toto and they're always constant

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 12:45 PM

Forks don't run away, HuwG. Only dishes and spoons do. And they invariably do it in the presence of jumping cows and laughing little dogs.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: HuwG
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 12:23 PM

Terry Pratchett (author of the "Discworld" series, and other SF fantasies) postulated the existence of a creature, "The Eater of Socks", which lived in tumble-dryers. This creature accounted for the orphaned and widowed socks, which I accumulate in great numbers.

No doubt some similar organism, with ferrophilic tendencies, is responsible for the disappearance of teaspoons and other items of cutlery. Over the years, I have lost several forks, and cannot account for their whereabouts. Dissolved ? Surely my cooking isn't that bad. Fallen onto the back of a lorry ? Run away ? All equally unlikely. I will no doubt find that some unbelievably horrible creature lurks past the U-bend, munching away on tines and handles ...

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 10:50 AM

Mooh, I'm sorry that your job security comes at such a price! I'm sitting here on this chilly morning wearing my reunited pair of socks, sipping hot tea in a cup on a saucer so I avoid leaving a ring on the beautiful wood of my desk. My habit is to always place the teaspoon back on the tray in the kitchen where my electric kettle, cannister of tea, sweetener, and tea strainer sit.

SRS--Feeling virtuous in not contributing to the spoon drain in this part of the country.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Mooh
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 10:30 AM

Every office, school, home, and even church where I've had the unenviable task of cleaning up after coffee and tea drinkers have suffered from the same unassailable fact that assholes leave their spoons in and about sinks, counters and tables, sugar and creamer jars, dirty mugs, and anywhere else where disrespect can be shown to co-workers, workplace, and cleaning staff.

Not a few of such spoons are simply swept into the trash in disgust by others. Some are nicked and welded into folk art by the maintenance staff, cut and bent into fishing lures, or migrate to another office by a visitor.

Last time I cleaned out our staff room drain, an annual event at least, there were at least two dozen of those plastic stir sticks, the possession of which renders the holder unable to tell the sink from the garbage can which sits mere inches away. I suspect that teaspoons have a similar effect on the holder, that which makes them unable to tell the difference between the trash and the dishwater. I've seen teaspoons complete with bag sitting in the trash but I'm reluctant to dumpster-dive for anyone.

Bitter? Not me. Thanks for contributing to my job security.

Peace (and clean up after yourselves).

Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 09:24 AM

Once or twice a year I buy a pack of six cheap teaspoons from Wilkinsons or a similiar shop for about £1. This seems to just keep up with their rate of escape. We notice that the caravan also loses them.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 04:00 AM

In my last job we had the same problem. When the boss retired they all turned up in his office- he would always take his coffee back to the office, stirring as he went. He took the cup back for refills but never bothered with the spoons!

RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: GUEST,Ella sans cookie
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 03:14 AM

The teaspoon fairy gets em all...

Ella

She's a cunning sort, with slight Kleptomaniac tendancies, she's often seen flying in short dipping bursts, weighted down with the latest swag of teaspoons.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 01:47 AM

Have you seen the "life cycle of the supermarket trolly"?

SBS did animations of the guy's cartoons (ah! - lost his name...) - it will come back to me when I'm thinking of something else...

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 01:01 AM

I had a sock come back this morning. All year I've glanced at the solitary mate off to the side of my sock drawer. It was a handsome rag sock, but I was afraid that the missing one had accidentally been dropped in the trash that was too close to the washer for a while.

Then this morning it was cold enough that I pulled out a fleece sweatshirt and "voila!" but what should drop out of the neckline but the errant sock! There's hope for those socks and spoons yet.

I think the life-cycle discussion of the paperclip/wire hanger is brilliant. Absolutely first-rate reasoning there.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Sam L
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 07:51 PM

I don't think there are kids in your office, but there is a stage of child development when spoons disappear.

So, the next theory. A few years ago friend of mine and his wife saw a movie that used the term "spooning", which they had never heard. Since it was clearly a couple-thing suggesting a sexual meaning, they wondered if I knew what it was. I did, but I told them shyly, I'm afraid it actually involves a spoon, and left it at that. My hope is that maybe this has caught on as an urban myth (like Tom Wolfe's "that thing with the cup") and now people in offices are "spooning".

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 06:56 PM

Sage - I have asked a physics teacher friend about the cooling coffee thing and he has explained it in terms even I can understand.

The rate of heat loss is affected by the differential between the hot coffee and the cooler air. The greater the differential, the more rapid the heat loss.

So, if you buy a cup of coffee at, say, 150 degrees F and walk back to your office through 50 degree air it will lose heat at a rate determined by a 100 degree temperature differential. Then you add cream and sugar and cool it further.

But, if you go ahead and add the cream and sugar when you buy the coffee and cool it to, say, 135 degrees, it will only lose heat at the rate determined by an 85 degree temperature differential.

So, it conserves more heat to cool the coffee before transporting it than afterwards.

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Ed.
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 06:21 PM

I'm with RangerSteve on lids.

Plectrums (Picks) and socks also exhibit similar behavior. Books are stating to gang up against me in a similar way. If I move, and sort 100 books, I'll do 99 right, but the one that I really wanted to look at will, of coursea be the one that I can't find

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 06:01 PM

OK, Dave O. I'm up to the first couple of verses.

Where have all the teaspoons gone
Long time passing
Where have all the teaspoons gone
Long time ago
Where have all the teaspoons gone
Gone to Tea rooms every one
When will they ever learn. When will they ever learn.

Where have all the tea rooms gone
Long time passing
Where have all the tea rooms gone
Long time ago
Where have all the tea rooms gone
Gone to Starbucks every one
When will they ever learn. When will they ever learn.

So. Another 4-5 verses and get it back to teaspoons. I dare ya!

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 05:56 PM

While we're at it, how about lids? I have lots of pots and lids, but they don't match. Once upon a time they did. The same goes for plastic containers. I have an equal amount of containers and lids, but none of them match. I blame the elves.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: GUEST,rock chick
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 05:37 PM

It's forks in my house, but think I have discovered where they go....to university, son was the first, now its one of my twin daughters, it's the only explanation!!! Or are there other forces working here????

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 03:50 PM

Anyone with an empty nest knows that teaspoons go to college when the kids leave home.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 02:23 PM

Anyone ever managed to use teaspoons as a musical instrument? Hobbits, for example?

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: KateG
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 01:18 PM

The difference between teaspoons and coffee spoons is size. Coffee spoons, aka demi-tasse spoons, are teesy little things that go with teensy little coffee cups--the size people used to drink expresso out of before the days of Starbucks and double grand lattes.

Teaspoons don't grow up to be coathangers. Immature coathangers are called paper clips, and both life stages are inordinately fond of tangling.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Peace
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 12:29 PM

Canadians stir their coffee with their thumbs. Really. It's in a song.

I have to parrot Amos. I think the spoons, keys and socks are all hangin' out together. They are in a big lost and found in the sky.

Or lots of people with the Bush administration are producing children born with them in their mouths.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 11:44 AM

What's the difference between a teaspoon and a coffee spoon? Or do we just stir coffee with teaspoons and they take umbrage?

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 11:06 AM

No, the problem isn't alchemy, they don't go from spoons to coathangers. They die off from inbreeding. My mother solved that problem when she gave me the her set of silver when I got married. She had kept it for fancy occasions, but I decided to just USE it, and the spoons area greatful to be out in circulation. But Mom inadvertently increased the gene pool by ordering some matching spoons and knives from one of those catalogs where you can get extras to match an old set. She doubled the number of teaspoons in our set (based on the theory so lucidly expressed here, that there are never enough of them) and now they all scurry to the dishpan in the sink whenever they're released from the drawer or a cup of hot tea.

Bill D, there is SCIENTIFIC evidence that your coffee gets colder faster if you mix it the way you do. Peggy on Newton's Apple (some may also remember her from her earlier stint as "Peggy the pseudo wife" on PBS's Home Time) measured the coffee temperature in two cups. One with the cream put in first (and a cap put on the cup) and the other coffee transported in the cup with lid, and the creamer added upon arrival at the destination (table, office desk, etc.). It was clearly much warmer to add the cream later. Just so you know!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the teaspoons go?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 11:05 AM

Where have all the teaspoons gone?
Sugar please be passing ....