Spoons

I was cleaning out some drawers today, including the silverware (well, flatware) drawer and got to thinking about spoons. My grandmother kept a sugar bowl on her kitchen table that was filled with spoons of all different patterns. I don't know if they were various patterns she'd had during her life or she went to second-hand stores to find different ones. It was fascinating to me as a little kid to look at all the different handles of the spoons sticking out of that ornate, rose-covered sugar bowl. The reason she had it, of course, was that spoons were the one type of flatware that was most used, what with folks sitting around the kitchen table drinking coffee most of the day.

When dinner time came (in Nebraska, dinner was at noon), my cousins and I would set the table and we each would have our own favorite spoon that we wanted at our place. Invariably there would be an argument over one particular spoon. Funny the things that kids find to argue about.

Years ago I thought that I would have my own sugar bowl full of mixed spoons. There's dozens of second-hand/antique stores around here and it would be an easy thing to pick up spoons that are orphaned from their original sets. I don't know why I never did it.

The Quadrennial Bicker

There's a reason that I only had one child. It wasn't that it just happened that way. I planned it. The reason was that I remembered growing up with my brother and the near-constant bickering between us. At the time, it was annoying, even though I was part of it. In retrospect, I realized how it must have driven my mother near the edge. I didn't want to deal with the same thing with my own kids, so I guaranteed that I wouldn't have to. An only child has no one to bicker with.

This morning as I was watching the "Today Show" on television, I was reminded of that decision. There were the two men who want to lead the most powerful country in the world, bickering like children. "He said such and such." "No I didn't. You're the one who said something bad." "No I didn't." Blah, blah, blah. Bicker, bicker, bicker. I turned off the television.

In every election since I've been old enough to vote, it's been the same sort of thing. Every time I start out favoring one candidate over the other, but by the time the election actually rolls around, I'm so sick of both of them that it's hard for me to cast a vote at all. I end up voting for the one who has annoyed me slightly less than the other. A couple of times I was so fed up that I just didn't vote.

I had hopes this time, naive as I am. McCain pledged to keep to the "high road" during the campaign and Obama said the same thing. From what I see, McCain started down the low road first, but now Obama has followed him down and I have no respect left for either one.

Oh, I'll vote for Obama. There's no question. But unless he manages to pull himself up out of the muck, I'll have to hold my nose to do it.

And I think both of them need to sit in the corner for a while and be sent to bed without their supper.