Spoon!

I stole a spoon. Not from a restaurant or store: from a gas station. Although, I suppose, since the spoon was just resting on top of the gas pump I stopped at and there were no signs of ownership or merchandising, technically I only acquired the spoon. But “I acquired a spoon” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, now does it? I don’t even know why I took it. True, I’ve stolen silverware before: I used to take forks from this quaint little dessert place that my friends and I would sometimes go to late at night. It’s not as though the forks were so great: I took them more as a comment on how desperate I was to experience something. That place is closed now, although I’m pretty sure that the loss of three forks was not what drove them under. But this spoon, simply sitting on top of the gas pump, waiting for its destiny… I needed to have it for some reason. It certainly doesn’t go with my flatware. In fact, it is a quite hideous spoon: white handle with soft blue flowers, web of cracks woven through the plastic, rough-edged bowl almost certain to abrade your lips if you ever put it in your mouth. I certainly don’t intend to eat with it, or even include it with the rest of my silverware: it is ugly, and should be shunned accordingly; hidden away with the seldom-used gizmos that have a way of steadily accreting in the secret spaces of our kitchens. So I didn’t take it because I needed something to eat with, or something to display. I think maybe I took it because it was lost, because it used to belong to someone and now it belongs to me. I wonder how it came to be on top of the gas pump; what the story is behind it. Did a harried mother set it there while she was trying to juggle six different things and a carload of screaming children? Perhaps a drug user abandoned it there to avoid getting caught with paraphernalia (I doubt it, though: there were no scorch marks on the bottom). Maybe it was left by someone who’s a geocacher, and now I have fucked up their carefully organized quest. What I hope is that it was purposefully left behind. Think about it: a spoon on top of a gas pump? It’s no Easter Island, but still a little mysterious. How great would it be if someone left it there to make people think, even for just a moment, about something outside of themselves?