Where do teaspoons actually go?

[drdoug]

The problem of disappearing teaspoons has been long remarked on. Probably since teaspoons were invented. Fanciful theories about what causes it abound - they run away with the dish, it's the Borrowers, they turn in to wire coathangers, they dissolve steadily in to coffee and tea, they teleport to a planet far away that is teaspoon heaven, and so on

Comments

[venta]

Is disappearance of teaspoons an issue? My domestic teaspoons don't seen to stray, and offices I've worked in tend to have had more of a fork problem. Except the current one, which just seems to haemorrhage cutlery in general. Fork disappearance makes sense: people take them off to eat lunch, and don't return then to the kitchen.

Perhaps departed teaspoons transform into odd socks?

[drdoug]

It's clearly not an issue for everyone. But it's an issue in my office, and in pretty much every office I've worked in. I have anecdotal reports from people who work in canteens and restaurants that teaspoons leave at a noticeably higher rate than other cutlery.

Perhaps departed teaspoons transform into odd socks?

Often proposed, but I think it suffers from a theoretical complexity penalty as an explanation, particularly by comparison with the wire coathanger theory. At least that one doesn't involve transformation from metal to fabric.

[venta]

I see your point about metal -> fabric.

Also, I continuously lose wire coathangers. Possibly that is the reason I am never short of teaspoons?

[drdoug]

Yeah, coathanger dynamics are curious.

My own population currently seems ultra-stable, which is slightly annoying since the population just-matches the number I want, so I have to track them carefully between the wardrobe, drying rack and ironing pile. In the past I've experienced slow but steady losses too.

But I have lived also in places where they multiply in rather alarming fashion - all tangled round each other in a frankly rude manner. You put two or three of them together on top of a wardrobe and six months later there are dozens of them.

So I reckon the coathanger conundrum is more about distribution, rather than about mystery disappearances.

[sushidog]

I'm not entirely sure whether you mean this literally or metaphorically. I mean, either is good, although attaching GPS trackers to metaphorical spoons might be difficult.

[drdoug]

*laughs* Yes, I nearly put a gag in at the end about lacking the metaphorical spoons to pursue it at the moment. I am still recovering from my chest infection, so for once the spoon experience is not a million miles from my actual lived experience.

'Where to metaphorical spoons actually go?' is probably a much easier - and more depressing - question to answer. Although we seem very far from understanding things like CFS and fibromyalgia. And, if I'm honest, those are a more pressing and worthy target for research efforts to ameliorate them

[booklectic]

My office is definitely a teaspoon-short environment.

I would back a kickstarter that tracked hairbands. And pens.

[judiff]

I think that like stompy Bunnys take them to use as weapons ...