I knew it was high time to do the dishes this morning when I went to make myself a bowl of kix. We were down to the last bowl, which isn’t too unusual – but we were also out of spoons. Well, out of normal spoons – there was a goodly stack of extra-big spoons, so I made do.
It’s always a little embarrassing when we run out of spoons, because, well, we have 16 of them. We only intended to have 8, but didn’t read the fine print on the silverware we registered for – each set was service for 4, but with 8 teaspoons. We missed the 8 teaspoon part, and registered for two sets. Because, well, we didn’t want to run out of spoons.
And yet, even with 16 teaspoons, from time to time, we manage to dirty them all. There’s just the two of us (well, unless the cats or turtle have evolved to spoon-usage), so we generally have ample warning when all the spoons are about to be dirty. With normal spoon-usage at 2 per day, and maximum spoon-usage at 4 per day, it is easy to predict – and avoid – a spoon shortage. And yet they still manage to happen.
The difficult part of washing 16 spoons in the dishwasher, is that you have to make sure that they don’t get nested together. With only 8 silverware buckets, it isn’t an easy task. It’s not possible to separate all the spoons by placing a fork or knife between them – especially if you don’t have enough dirty other pieces of silverware. (What can I say, we love our spoons.) And the silverware will fall and settle where it may, with nary a care as to where you so lovingly placed it.
The dishwasher is now running and cleaning all the spoons – and then we will be set for another week.