Spoons

Faz walked over to me in the canteen and threw a knife and fork at me across the table.

 

“You’ll be needing these,” he said.

 

“No I won’t,” I said. “I’m making a stand for spoons.”

 

Faz looked confused. “But you don’t do woodwork,” he said.
 
“No, I’m not making somewhere to put spoons, I mean I’m standing up for spoons, making the case for spoons, celebrating their importance. It’s why I’m eating my lunch with a spoon. I’ve given up all other forms of cutlery.”
 
“Why? What’s wrong with a fork?”
 
“What’s wrong with a fork? They’re not necessary, that’s what’s wrong with them. Spoons can do anything a fork can do. Spoons are the ultimate cutlery. In an ideal word there wouldn’t be any knives, or forks, let along sporks.”
 
“What about cutting, the spoon’s not exactly bladed.”

 

“Blades – not necessary, just a marketing gimmick. I’m managing perfectly well with just a spoon thank you very much.” I demonstrated by slicing a potato in two, sans problem.
 
“Yeah, ‘sokay for a veggie like you, but you can’t cut a steak with a spoon.”
 
“I’m not veggie, I just mostly eat veggie food.” People always make that mistake.
 
 xxx
 
My parents met my statement that I was ditching knives and forks with the same bemused bafflement with which they greet everything I do and say these days. I guess it’s the age they’re at.
 
“How will you eat steak?” My mother asked (I wonder if you’ve spotted a theme yet).
 
“Mum, this household has been vegetarian all my life.”
 
“I’ve cooked you steak.”
 
“You burnt me a steak once, that’s a different thing.” Mother sometimes tried to ‘accommodate’ my meat eating tendencies with the occasional ‘treat’. Unfortunately, as she’d never eaten meat, she never learnt how to cook it, and the resultant ‘treat’ usually resulted in me being rushed to hospital with food poisoning. Mum takes this as a vindication of her meatless stance, evidence of the dangers of eating our animal friends, rather than as an indication that she really should learn to cook properly.
 
Dad’s response was typically dad-like. “Spoons eh! I agree, they’re very special, the only cutlery that’s also a musical instrument. Here, you should listen to this.” So saying, he rooted around in his CD collection for a few minutes, during which I patiently waited. One day I’ll break it to him that CDs are no longer necessary, or maybe I won’t, I don’t think his heart could take the shock. Besides, he’d never fill the void in his life, he spends most of his time rooting around his disordered CDs, if he ever discovered technology he might just decide he had nothing left to live for.
 
“Here we are, Stevie Spoons,” he announced, “The finest spooner you ever heard.” He proudly put on the CD, which played the sound of rattling metal.
 
“Dad, it sounds like a bloke doing the washing up very badly.”
 
Dad guffawed, as dad does, saying “I guess I must like the sound of washing up.” I guess he must, he was still listening to the CD an hour later. Maybe we should get rid of the dishwasher. He’d be happy then.
xxxx

 

Chas got it. I told him I’d given up knives and forks and was just eating with spoons now.

 

He blew out a big, raincloud puff of skunksmoke and said “Cool. Fuck forks.”

 

“Exactly, you can eat perfectly well with a spoon. Fuck forks. Fuck knives.”
 
“People would still use knives though,” Chas said. “For knife crime and shit.”
 
“No they wouldn’t, there wouldn’t be any knives so there wouldn’t be any knife crime. That’s the beauty of it.”

 

“Wow, that is so fucking deep. People would be holding up off-licences brandishing spoons, and the geezer behind the counter would go, ‘fuck off spooner, you can’t hurt me’. You’d practically end all crime.”

 

Mostly, on late evenings when Chas rolled a joint, the conversation would somehow always end with us ending all crime, or achieving world peace, sometimes both. Chas always bought the best shit. Happy endings.

 

xxx
 
The best thing about my spoon stand was Jasmine Womble.
 
She came and sat next to me in the canteen at lunchtime (After Faz had gone thank god). “Can you help me?” She said, “I can’t manage to butter my roll.” She presented me with a roll, a slab of butter, a spoon and a suitably confused expression. Clearly news of my stand had crossed the gender divide.
 
“You scoop the butter with the bottom of your spoon and spread it, exactly as you would with a knife,” I said.

 

“A knife? What’s one of those?”
 
“Exactly how I feel. Yesterday’s cutlery as far as I’m concerned.”
 
I demonstrated how to butter a roll with a spoon by buttering her roll with a spoon. I have quite a literal mind.
 
“I see,” she said, looking suitably impressed.
 
Johnson chose this moment to walk by. “You letting Mikey butter your roll, Jas-mine?  Let me do it for you, I’ve got a big, thick knife and lots of butter.” Johnson made everything sound sexual, even in his weekend job – he sold ladies socks in the most sexual manner imaginable. He was good at it though, apparently the sock section had doubled in size since he’d been working there.

 

Eventually Johnson left us alone.  This was the chance I’d been waiting for, Jasmine Womble had crossed the canteen and sat next to me. If I could chat to her I could casually find a way of asking her out. There was bound to be a movie she’d like. Or a gig. I just needed to start a conversation that naturally led to …
 
Her phone made a boinging noise. She scanned it quickly.  “I’ve gotta ping,” she said, leaping out of her chair. “It’s all happening on the other side of the canteen.”
 
She returned to her friends, who giggled like schoolgirls about something (in their defence, they were schoolgirls, but even so). In the distance I watched Jasmine demonstrated buttering her roll with an imaginary spoon. In her hands, the exercise looked utterly sexual. I could suddenly understand what women felt when Johnson held up a pair of socks. God, if Jasmine ever got a part-time job on the spoon counter I could see myself spending half my money there.