The Fork Thief.

Image Source: Paul Pomeroy (Fork with Shadow)

Okay people, I have a very important question to ask:

Has anyone else read “The Book Thief”? This post has nothing remotely to do with that novel, except that I wish to say that it’s excellent and you should read it.

Now, the question I meant to ask:

Which of you is stealing all of my forks?!?!

Somebody HAS to be stealing them just to mess with me, because there is literally no other acceptable explanation for how they have all disappeared. And this isn’t even the first time this has happened - I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve found myself in the midst of a fork shortage once before. So, whoever you are, Mr./Ms. Fork Thief, I’ve had enough! It’s time to fess up!

Tangent: Is anyone else disturbed by the fact that men still only have to worry about the pronoun Mr. (or, fine, Dr., if you’re a stuck-up, better-than-the-rest-of-us intellectual snob who either deals with bodily functions or writing long dissertations no one will ever read, we all hate you, go away) while women continue to have to deal with the confusing, messy tangle of Miss/Mrs./the hideous and oddly coy Ms./Dr. (see above)? Can I just be a ME? Can I be a woman who’s an entity of her own right, now that we of the vagina-bearing sex have the right to vote and attend college in greater masses than men and have almost-sort-of-not-really come close to having a female president? “Miss” is what you call a 10 year old precocious girl with sproingy golden curls and a big floofy pink dress (neither of those adjectives are real words). Mrs. is what I call my mother, and your mother, and everybody who’s old. Ms., even though it’s preferable to the juvenile “Miss,” makes it sound like I got secretly married when I was 18 for some dude’s benefits package but I don’t want anyone to know but I also don’t want to lie so I’m just ambiguous. Or maybe that I’m married but I’m sort of tired of having sex with the same man every single time and want to try to venture out and explore adulterous excursions without anyone knowing the truth about who I am. Or maybe that I USED to be married but got a divorce and didn’t know what title to use for myself so now I use Ms. and choke back tears for my failed relationship every time I fill out some stupid governmental form or mailing address box that requires I tell them my marital status even though it drives a knife into my heart to think about those wasted 10 years of my life and the fact that I might never find true love again. Or maybe that I used to be married but the dude died and now I’m all alone and married still in my heart but not in actuality and I just want to die, too.

End tangent.

Here’s the situation: I only have 3 forks left in my kitchen, and I definitely bought a set of 8 a while back to accompany the 4 that I stole from my college cafeteria when I was a poor undergrad. Now, am I’m supposed to believe that somewhere along the line, I, Ms. (damn that pronoun!) Mildly-OCD, just up and LOST ELEVEN FUCKING FORKS? Nope, not going to happen. That pathetic excuse of an explanation is not going to cut it. Here’s what I know for sure: somebody is breaking into my apartment and stealing my forks from me.

I mean, come on. I have searched through all my drawers. I dug through the other utensil slots in the organizational divider I bought from The Container Store. I triple-checked the dishwasher. And still I have NO IDEA where all those forks went.

Yes, this has happened before, which makes this scenario all the more bizarre. I used to have 8 forks, all swiped covertly from the overcrowded college cafeteria years ago (yes, I’m a mild klepto, whatever, blame the OCD). Then, shortly after my then-boyfriend moved in with me, 4 of those forks just up and disappeared. They vanished slowly, one at a time, until finally we kept running into trouble at dinnertime, unable to eat our food because spoons are pretty much useless and our remaining forks were always dirty so we had to continuously hand-wash them to compensate, which, despite taking 10 seconds to accomplish, was an unacceptably inconvenient task.

Naturally, I blamed the boyfriend. Where had he mistakenly put the forks away? Did he not know which dividing slot to stack them in, between the spoons and the knives? He must have accidentally tossed them in the trash! He hated me and was trying to play a devious game on my fragile mind because he wanted out of the relationship and that was the only pathway to freedom that he’d been able to come up with! My accusations ran wild. Of course, he pleaded innocent, and finally I conceded, went to Target, and bought the cheapest box of forks they had available. As I recall, the cheapest box was still far too expensive for a run-of-the-mill utensil I could have easily just swiped en masse from my then-restaurant-serving job, but I forked over the money (PUN!) and made our collection right again, the ethical way.

But now all those forks are gone again. And my fiancé isn’t here to blame. So I’m trapped in a living nightmare.

This time around, I tried blaming the dog. Of course! They’re shiny and chewable and perhaps he wanted to become a hoarder and had a pile of them hidden somewhere, amidst a pile of my shoes or underneath the couch! My dog also played the innocent card, cocking his head and whimpering at me slightly in confusion. 

And, this goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: obviously I was not the one to misplace them. I would never be so careless.

SO! Fork thief! Return the forks now, and all sins will be forgiven and forgotten! Please - I don’t want to start to go mad, etching lines into my wall to keep track of the remaining forks while I mumble to myself and scratch at one single point on my scalp until all the hair there falls out.

Just give my forks back to me.

I really don’t want to have to make another trip to Target. 

Blog of the Week: Safely Endangered.

I’m happy to introduce you to this brand-new blog on Tumblr. The subtitle explains, “I draw terrible comics for your amusement!” That’s all we know about the author, but I can tell you right away he/she is a liar - the comics are far from terrible.

Exhibit A:

God, I love depressing humor. This is a blog to watch, for sure. And hopefully we’ll find out more about the artist eventually… This shit’s too good for her or him to stay hiding in the shadows for long.