My Favorite Serving Spoon

Perhaps only my sister and I will find this funny. I think it even took my Husband a few minutes to find the humor in it. Obviously, I find it funny enough to write about it (and I'm still chuckling about it as I type).

I'm sure at some point in the blog I've mentioned once or twice what a thief my mother was. If I haven't or you don't remember, I'm relatively sure she was one of the most successful petty thieves of upstate NY. I even mentioned in our meeting with the funeral home guy that it should've been put in her obituary as a hobby.

I remember the first time my husband - then boyfriend - went home with me. My parents took us out to dinner and my husband ordered water for his drink. They brought him a glass with his own carafe of water. My mother leaned over, tapped the carafe and said "That's nice. Finish it before we leave so I can put it in my purse." My husband laughed until I told him she was serious (though I don't think she managed to get it).

There was one summer vacation - I was probably 7 or 8, we were waiting for a table at our favorite place to eat in Old Forge and my parents each ordered a beer. They came in these really heavy glass mugs that my mother seemed to struggle to carry to the table when we were called...all the while commenting on what a nice mug it was. After dinner mom asked dad to take her purse for her. Dad picked it up and it was so heavy it surprised him and he dropped. Mom snapped at hime to be careful. He said - a little too loud - "Jesus Christ! What do you have in here?!" It was her beer mug.

There are a lot of those stories. She went through a phase where we couldn't go out without her pocketing the steak sauce. She didn't need it. She just did it. Once at my parents house we were getting ready to eat dinner and my husband said what a nice steak knife he was using. He told me it looked like the ones Outback uses. With him having been around for about 10 years at that point, I stared at him and asked him just where he thought she got it.

Which brings me to my favorite serving spoon. It was nothing fancy. Just a good, sturdy stainless steel spoon that I used for almost everything. My mom stole it from some catered function at work and I loved it. It even had the name of the building she stole it from etched on the back. This year, I used it on Thanksgiving and it seems to have disappeared. My mother-in-law has searched for it, I've searched for it, my husband has too. We're thinking it was set on top of the car when we were leaving and never got put inside. Whatever happened to it, it's gone. I was really sad about it. Maybe that's stupid but I was. After searching high and low and realizing it was gone, I just told my sister one day that I lost it and how upset I was.

She sent me back a picture of one and asked it was the same.

It was. I figured she'd tell me I could have it and I knew I couldn't take it. After all, mom had apparently stolen one for her too. So I told her it was the same kind. Then she sent me another picture:

I lost it. I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. I can't believe she was never arrested! Also, I'm getting more spoons :)