THE LOST SPOON

I love my big serving spoons.

They don't belong to a set that was a wedding present. I don't "love" our other utensils, though I'm fond of our small steak knives (bought two dozen of them so we can use them practically all the time).

I don't have a silver tea set or "guest" silverware, china, or crystal anything, except six Baccarat beer mugs Alan Lerner gave us one Christmas. (We've never used them -- tried to grow carrot tops in them, but carrot tops are a bit of bore.)

" Oh where oh where has one-dear-big-spoon gone ... ?" I sang.

JC, peering under the new stove sang "Where or where can it be ...?"

Husband and wife dialogue while hunting the first day:
"I didn't throw it out? Did you?"
"Gee, I didn't think so, hon ..."
I looked in the trash basket -- "It's not here."
He looked in the garbage basket -- "It's not here."
I searched behind the electric radiator that's under the table.
He moved the orange cabinet, to make sure it wasn't there.

We missed them, serving the salad with two regular-sized tablespoons.

Husband and wife dialogue while checking again the second day:
"What am I going to use when I'm serving the sauce?"
(We were having spaghetti with my red sauce -- with finely cut chicken, onions, mushrooms, celery, plus raisins, tangerine segments, and peanuts.)
JC handed me our clumsy, large soup spoon, muttering "I didn't throw it out."
He looked through the trash in the hallway recycle bin.
While I set the table murmuring something about the impossibility of buying one new spoon to go with the other one, he actually looked through all the garbage in our hallway bin.

Third day, we looked for serving spoons at Pier One. One huge spoon (too large for our drawer), was a possibility. We looked for spoons at two other stores -- no right-size spoons were available. We repeated our mournful conversation about how could it have happened, where could the spoon be, and decided we'd make do with one spoon.

Every time I passed through the kitchen I found myself looking in all the same places again. Saying good night, JC whispered out loud to himself, "Can't believe I threw out that big spoon."

Fourth day, we didn't mention them. JC found a new fixture that could light his computer's black keyboard, bought it, and while he was testing it, I raced upstairs to get a small extension cord and a pair of pliers he might need.

Yay- wow - gee- whoopee!

Lo and behold -- the serving spoon -- it was lying on the back end of our grand piano with the pliers!

I called into the intercom.."Come quick! There's something wonderful I want you to see. "

Well of course we reconstructed the story -- when, how it got there -- I'd put the spoon down and forgotten about it when our new mail lady buzzed.

We told each other over -- it could have taken weeks till we noticed it. It could have taken months.

We clinked the two spoons before serving the salad that night, and again clinked them, serving the sauce I made to go with my cod fish and scallops stew.

"We found it ..." we sang at lunch today, giddily, delightedly, serving each other our fruit salad with our dearly beloved, darling twin spoons.