in memoriam

I was invited to a Memorial Day picnic. And, being one to rarely turn down an invitation to eat, I decided to attend. Knowing my talent in the culinary arts, I decided bring some store-bought potato salad instead of trying to create my own. Trust me...the other picnicking guests would be better off.

I brought the potato salad home and dumped it into a bowl, grabbing a wooden spoon for scooping, before heading off to the picnic. Granted, I could have left the food in its original container, but I like to give the illusion of competency in kitchen matters. This, despite the fact that there are no cooking skills entwined within my genes.

I returned home that evening with my empty bowl and spoon in hand. The store bought potato salad having proved edible enough for total consumption...which is more than could be said for anything that I would have made.

I found an empty spot in my dishwasher along side several days worth of dirty plates, turned the machine on, and went to take a shower.

Once squeaky clean and toweled off, I noticed an overpowering scent of burning wood. It's late May, so I couldn't imagine that someone in the apartment complex was using their fireplace...a fireplace that costs $100 more a month, which is why I reside in a non-fireplaced apartment.
I wrapped the towel around my waist and began investigating in earnest.

Soon, since I only have three rooms to examine, I found that the odor was emanating from the kitchen. The oven was off. Nothing was in the toaster. The microwave was empty. I opened the dish washer and a wave of smoke infused steam rose up around me. Odd, I thought, that my dishwasher smelled smoky...not smoking, exactly, just smoky.

I peered inside and saw that my one, lone, wooden spoon had somehow fallen off the rack and was now wedged underneath a thin circular piece of metal at the bottom of the appliance. The same spoon that, hours before, had been sitting in a bowl of potato salad.

Possessing very little mechanical knowledge and knowing nothing, in specific, of dish washers, I reached down to retrieve the spoon. I grabbed the spoon, inadvertently touching the metal pipe thing, and burned my finger. Having never realized that anything that hot could be found inside a dish washer, I was quite surprised. 'Wouldn't the water cascading around the dishes cool any hot metal? Apparently not,' I thought, as I held my finger under a cold stream of water from the faucet.

Once my finger was tended to, I returned to the spoon. Without the searing pain to avert my attention, I noticed that the spoon was smoldering, the wood of the handle that was lodged under the circular metal being blackened and completely seared.

Careful to keep all appendages away from the metal, I got the spoon out and ran it under the same cool stream that served my finger so well only moments before. Once satisfied that there were no glowing embers left, I tossed the charred spoon into the trashcan. 'My dear spoon,' I thought, 'you have served your picnic well.'