Flatware Love.

You know they want to be together!

(Remember last week when you caught little spoon on desert forks side!)
You know it wasn't the first time.
 You can't control this.
They want to be together.
It's time to tear down the plastic walls.


It's not your fault, so don't feel ashamed. But it really is time to move forward.

No doubt the cutlery organizer has been around as long as mankind. I'm sure it was the first thing the caveman ever carved out of stone, presented to his woman.
"Ooga  uga iga ooog" he said, which is caveman for "forks go on the right".
Cave woman was glad. This gave her something to do while she was secretly thinking about a stone-age version of Matt Dylan.
"Oga igo oooog" she said (which means "oh cool! Thanks and you can let go of my hair now")

  Cave woman had a small brain, so it seems like a time saver. She had not yet developed the intelligence to realize that while setting the cave table was about to become a bit simpler, putting the stone/flat ware away was going to take longer. The benefit had cancelled itself out. If she was smart she'd of said "ggoga uki oook", which means "what a colossal waste of time!" in caveman.

Time passed, the dinosaurs died, Jesus was born, explorers sailed the world, a million ideas and theories, tried/tested and dismissed. So what really is the point of the cutlery tray?

Why are we still trying so hard to keep the knives and spoons apart?
Why do we spend so much of our lives protecting the dinner forks from the dessert forks?

(My socks and my bras touch each other all day long...without any obvious consequences (that I know of). Sometimes I toss scarves and underwear in there.
Nothing bad has ever happened.)

Simply put, the cutlery tray is a weapon of suppression, a tool of the paranoid, an enabler to the obsessive compulsive.
The cutlery tray keeps the big spoons and the little spoons apart-(gulp.. it breaks up families!)

I know you want to control something- but you need to find something else. Let go of this primitive notion. This forced separation is futile.
Fork, knife and spoon we're meant to be together. They want to be together. They will be together!
Eventually, even IKEA won't be able to keep them apart.
It's time to dump them all into a heap and be done with it!

Friend, you and your cave-ancestors thought you were in control but you're not.
Put your ear close to the drawer.
They are laughing at you.
The spoon, the fork, the dessert fork, the butter knife, the ice cream scoop...the spatula...

 They've been doing it at the bottom of the sink the whooooole time!

Summer Job..Ooh Ya!

Dear Friends,
You keep telling me to “think outside the box” when it comes to creating summer employment for myself.
I think I’ve come up with something.
So just one question before I type up my business plan:
How much are you willing to pay me to not-talk like Russell Oliver all summer?

Now before you answer, let me first remind you that I am no Rich Little. Remember the summer I tried to talk like Paul McCartney; misquoting lines from the touching epic “Yellow Submarine" and getting all in your face with that song “Michelle”. Recall how when I lost my train of thought (which is a small train at best) I slipped into that slutty cockney accent that indirectly got us booted out of “ladies Night” at Gords’.

Having said that, imagine how annoying it will be next time we meet and I offer to “turn your kids into cash”. Oh Ya!

You’re going to hate that.

So what’s it worth to ya?

Huh??

I know you got tired of me saying “a jolly rancher is not a sprinkle” in that really unauthentic “Apu” voice I half heartedly attempt. That’s something to keep in mind next time you’re stopping at the ATM.

It’s not like my rendition of Russell is going to be any better. I probably won’t practice it before I use it in public and I am not even hell bent on quote him correctly. Remember, my standards are not all that high and I’m no perfectionist. (You do know I used face-cloths as dish towels and vice-versa right?) Okay, well as long as we’re clear. I can’t promise my summer-long impersonation will be funny. I can only promise it will get on your nerves. OH YAA!

Before you dismiss this as another Kathy-esque pie- in- the -sky get rich quick scam- like my ongoing 30 year fling with the music business (and that time I worked at Zehrs), let me say in my defence that desperate times call for desperate measures and “I’LL BUY YOUR USED JEWELRY NO QUESTIONS ASKED!”

So think about it pal, and let me know how much to put you down for.

If you’d rather not, that’s okay too.

I won’t be mad and I’ll still come to your she-she-foo-foo dinner party next month. I’ll be the one dressed as the “Loan Arranger.”

Stalking Jack

Jack, you’re on my mind: You, of magic bean myth, jumper of candle sticks, tumbling down the hill with Jill, the guy who could eat no fat and stuck your finger in a pie (snicker).

You’re everywhere man, and since no press is bad press...you Sir are legend.

I was thinking the other day about the time you traded your family’s only food source in for some magic beans. When I read this as a kid I thought it was a great move. Who wouldn’t want a magic bean stalk?
In reality, your judgement was poor. It would have been like me spending my father’s entire salary on “The Amazing Live Sea Monkeys”...and I’m not going to make that mistake again. It was risky business Jack, sacrificing your family’s security on a whim. Did you ever stop to wonder why a farmer with access to magic beans would need your cow in the first place? Then you climbed that stalk without a cell phone or a buddy to help you out. Glad the magic harp lessons paid off, but I gotta wonder if it was a smart move. You’re lucky golden eggs were even recognized as currency in your township.
Exactly how many six-pence’s is a golden egg worth anyhow?

I guess you became a bit of an adrenalin addict. Dodging a child eating giant should have been enough for you, but there you were not long after, making the headlines again jumping over candle sticks. I’m glad you’re nimble and quick but it only takes one small miscalculation to end up in the burn unit at Mother-Goose General. It wasn’t a very good example to set. Did you ever once consider your audience? How many 21st century tots have laid awake wondering how to get a hold of some tall candle sticks and their father’s Bic. Every time I see “house fire” in the news... I think of you.

Which brings me to your next escapade: Are you or are you not the same Jack who was depicted on page 235 of my beloved Mother Goose Anthology in short pantaloons putting your thumb in a pie?
You’re a cheeky boy Jack. Perhaps your mother should think twice about letting you snack during a punishment.

It’s no wonder you grew to be lard-intolerant, changed your name to Spratt and married a girl with serious fat potential. Serves you right really.

And this woman...is she Jill? The same tart you took to the top of the hill? Did she really love you or was she just after your golden eggs (so to speak)? And how is it someone claiming to be “nimble and quick” found himself tumbling down a simple hill? I saw that hill in a cartoon series. I’ll admit it was a stupid place to put a well (Mother Hubbard could never have navigated that slope), but it was nothing compared to the stalk you had famously mastered. Perhaps you should have lined the hillside with candles and leapt safetly to solid ground.

And back to Jill: did she stick around to mend your crown? Or did you turn to the Lamb-owning-Quite-Contrary-Mary for comfort?

And finally I need to know; what is your connection that notorious Pumkin-eater known as Peter-Peter? Surely it is no coincidence that two lads for the same era, found themselves in possession of giant vegetables (so to speak). Did you grow up in “The Shoe” together? Did the two of you combine your interests (pumpkins, candles) and develope a little something called the "jack-o-lantern"? And if so, where is the wife-he-couldn't-keep now that her residence has been carved up? Is she baking black-birds in a pie? Building London Bridge up with sticks and stone? Taken up with Georgie Porgie?

And one more thing Jack, do you know or know of a fellow called "Wee Willy Winky"? I read a report, (a rhyming report actually), that he once ran "up and down" the town in his "night gown". Oddly enough there is a group of young people around here that wear thier pajama pants about town and I was wondering if perhaps he might have some relatives in our shire.