There is something truly humbling about the learning curve that comes with owning your first home.
Over the last couple of years, I have occasionally reached out to my phenomenal neighbours from my cul-de-sac, who have fielded random (but still semi-reasonable) questions from the new guy on the street.
For instance, “Why would my lawnmower have trouble starting after staying put through the winter?” led to a better understanding of a carburetor and post-season Gumout.
Installing a smart thermostat led to phone calls that included, “I’m learning how to connect the coloured wires to the system… is there any chance the gas service will ignite, and my house will blow up?”
“So, installing a ceiling fan begins with turning off the fuse box? Why?”
Indeed, it has been an adventure.
The series of new questions I didn’t even know existed keeps my friends and neighbours busy—and they keep rolling. They felt akin to asking “if you go to the north pole and keep going north, where do you end up?” and Tron’s question to Chad from Chappelle’s Show—“What’s the square root of this apartment?”
It’s a brave new world.
However, there has been no learning arc, no revealing epiphany, no exquisite moment of realization greater than this… than the spoon rest.
In the words of Stabbing Westward, spoon rest…why are you haunting me?
Let me explain.
Upon moving in and getting settled, the next reasonable step was to furnish things and make the house a home.
Cue Leon’s and Green’s.
Notably, furnishing the kitchen.
Cue Amazon.
Cue Wayfair.
Things arrived that I swore I would never understand.
A garlic press appeared to be a convincing tool used by both mafia enforcers and the Mossad to seek answers from the unmotivated.
A vegetable steamer seemed to be tech that E.T. could connect to a Speak & Spell and reach out to forgetful relatives.
A mortar and pestle looked far too close to Torquemada’s tool to make ash for his hourglass timer from The Pit and the Pendulum and perhaps a bit too similar to anything from the mind of Clive Barker.
Then the pièce de résistance arrived… the familiar source of my confusion across the years.
The spoon rest.
Before I continue, I must say that “thinking way outside of the box” seems to be a way to imaginatively forget that I didn’t understand housewares.
But there it was.
The restful cradle of the unused utensil.
The smooth porcelain curvature of the edge.
The gap in the edge on the back of what appeared to be a handle.
The either tasteful or obsessively deceptive colouring and contour.
The spoon rest.
However, furnishing my kitchen was the last chapter and verse of a 30-year tempest of misunderstanding.
You see, I had no idea that a spoon rest had an actual purpose.
Nor a name.
Nor a correct way to use it.
For more than three decades, I was certain…absolutely certain…that a spoon rest was simply a soup spoon.
A fancy soup spoon.
A unique utensil that is rarely found at the dining table without deserving company, class, style, and status.
Until the moment I realized what it actually was (which was followed by laughing at myself and shaking my head), it truly was an event.
I was 100 per cent convinced that a spoon rest was a stylish soup spoon used only when important guests would join someone at a long, populated table.
Yes, a fancy soup spoon where one can enjoy some culinary magic with soup where it would be impossible to loudly (or quietly) slurp one’s Tuscan Tomato Soup while in professional company.
Yes, think Billy Madison.
If you remember, Billy (played by Adam Sandler) was late joining his Dad’s five-star hotel board of directors and investors at a massive dinner table in which an entire scene is defined by him slurping soup, smacking his lips and shouting gibberish.
A “Sorry, Daddy” and then back to slurping, smacking, and pouring the meal into his mouth with relentless consistency of a programmed cyborg.
The guests? Uncomfortable and horrified.
Is this where soup brings us? This chaos?
Or is this where the wrong spoon delivers us?
This must be why this unique spoon was created.
Its shallow depth, classy curve, and open handle must have reinvented the brunch game in the spirit of Billy Madison.
For 30-plus years, I was convinced that was what a spoon rest was for.
Thor had his hammer.
Blade had his sword.
Even Gambit had his pool cue.
In the grand tradition of sacred tools that make the world better, the Billy Madison anti-slurp soup spoon arrived in one of the first boxes to be delivered here.
In a humbling and solemn moment, I realized what the spoon rest was.
Well played, Wayfair.
Although the Billy Madison anti-slurp soup spoon is the kitchen element we deserve, but apparently not the one we need just yet.
Thank you for opening my eyes, Wayfair.
Robert Horton is an educator, author, orator and linguist. He is a member of Rainy River First Nations.
