It’s 10 AM. Do you know where your spoons are?

If you have a husband or children, you might have noticed a small imbalance in the cutlery drawer. Out of a service for twelve you have 17 forks, three butter knives and one and a half spoons. 

How does this happen?

Miss Crankypants knows.

She started out with a full set of silverware, even though the set was purchased with Green Stamps way back when folks saved stuff like that. Raise your hand if you remember what Green Stamps were! Miss CP’s cutlery set was nothing fancy but it did the job. Her silverware even included twelve iced tea spoons, a jelly spoon and a ladle. But the most curious–OK infuriating–thing happened. Somehow, pieces started migrating.

At first it was mostly the knives. Miss Cranky’s husband claims there are hundreds of uses for regular old table knives. And steak knives are even better! Pretty soon the lion’s share of the knives had moved out to the garage work bench. They didn’t want to come back, which was just as well. Every knife soon took on a patina, caused by using knives to help solder broken stuff. And if that wasn’t enough, the poor knifeys all got mangled noses–from using them to pry paint cans open of course. The knives were, Miss Crankypants discovered, filched by none other than Mr. Crankypants. Who knew a humble paring knife could remove a stripped screw? Apparently, kitchen knives are a go-to in the Crankypants toolbox.

Forks we still had plenty of unless a curious idiot poked one into a light socket.

As the kids came along, the knives stopped disappearing, but suddenly there were never any clean spoons. Like a sock-eating dryer, somehow the silverware drawer was snacking on spoons during the night. Or at least SOMEBODY was snacking. Every morning, Miss CP was horrified to discover that more teaspoons had gone missing. She searched the garage workbench, but all she found there were some dull knives with bent points. Where had all the spoons gone?

Miss Cranky finally got an anonymous tip that certain young boys were using the spoons to dig tunnels for their GI Joes out in the sandbox. When she finally dug out a few of these trench-loving implements, the spoons looked like the guys had used them to scoop rock hard ice cream. Some were nearly bent in half! The boys were put on notice: touch the spoons and you will never see your GI Joes again. 

That stopped the pilfering–for now. But Miss Cranky feels it’s her duty to warn the world: Insure your flatware or post a guard next to the drawer. She’s thinking of microchipping each piece. 

If you happen to see a stray knife, fork or spoon wandering around loose, check it for a microchip. Miss Crankypants will be happy to trade a bent ice tea spoon for a couple of steak knives.