Sacred Spoon

“It was the sacred spoon,” explained the poster on the Dull Men’s Club Facebook page. He meant his family’s favorite cooking spoon. It was a large plastic spoon used in stirring many dishes. Everyone found it far superior to any other spoon. No one wanted to cook with any other spoon. They all wanted that one. They all looked and shopped for a duplicate for 10 years. No one found one until recently. That day his mother called screaming with joy, “I found the spoon! I found a whole display of them. I bought every spoon on display.” Now the next generation has not one, but two of the perfect cooking spoons.Hubby did that when he discovered a serrated edged knife that fit his hand perfectly and cut just about anything and everything. He liked that knife so much, he went and bought two for our knife rack and one for each of our children’s kitchens. I considered it a bit much, until I realized I grabbed that knife for everything except peeling potatoes and coring apples.Once you find the perfect tool, keep it. Long ago, my dad brought home two, sturdy, round pieces of scrap stainless steel sheets from work. My mom showed them to me. I cast a coveting eye on what I saw as large cookie sheets.I think I asked for them. I hope I did. Whatever, she let me take them home. Maybe she thought dad’s company would cut a few more. I do not know if they did. I do know that I reach for them first when I bake cookies or pizza.One visit my daughter’s determination to reduce clutter threatened their presence. She arrived declaring, “Mom, you don’t need back ups for your back ups. You need to get rid of some of these things.” I agreed until she reached for those cookie sheets.“No, leave those alone. Those are my cookie sheets. Mom gave them to me.”She put them back. Before she visits, I made cookies on them.Favorite tools receive covetous looks. In another poster’s family, an ice cream scoop won family favorite status. “It will have to be willed down to keep siblings from killing each other over it,” the poster said. She added that she would not be fighting to inherit the ice cream scoop. “We went on Ebay and found the same item. Now we don’t have to worry.”Hubby declared first dibs for his mother’s antique, medical scale with a balance beam for weight and a sliding stick to gauge height. “When Mom passes, I want that,” he often said. Everytime we drove north to his mother’s house, he made sure he weighed himself on it.I rolled my eyes and said, “If you want a medical scale, we are not waiting for her to pasd so you can get hers.” I bought one and gave it to him for Christmas. For the last 30 plus years he has stepped on those scales every morning to check his weight and then recorded his weight of the day. A few years after he received it, his mother, in failing health, opened her home to relatives and gave away everything she owned. Someone else took home the antique scales from the medical clinic. He did not even ask for it Our children assure us they do not want anything we have, not even those fantastic, still shiny cookie sheets I have used for 45 years. I guess when I no longer need them wily will finally reach the metal recycling plant trailing a whiff of freshly made cookies.