Last weekend, something very tragic happened. Ok, well, maybe "tragic" is an overkill, but nonetheless, it has gotten me so upset that I can't stop talking about it (but it did give me an opportunity to write a post about it.) So, here's the story.
Last Saturday, I was making chocolate chip cookies to bring over to my friend's house. As I gathered all my ingredients and utensils, I opened the kitchen drawer to retrieve my favorite spatula (or as we call it, the "pancake-turner".) I have a couple of kitchen drawers full of utensils, so I was not surprised that the pancake-turner was not located in the top drawer where I normally keep it. (In CT's "helpfulness" to empty the dishwasher, he just puts things anywhere he can fit them, regardless of how the cabinets are organized.)
When I could not find the pancake-turner in the first drawer, I immediately began searching for it in the next utensil drawer. Then the next. Nothing. Slowly, panic started to set in. I yelled out to CT, "Hey - I can't find my pancake turner!" CT replied, "What do you mean, you can't find your pancake-turner?" I shouted back, "I can't find it! It's not in the drawers!" CT proceeded to help me go through not only all the cabinet drawers, but also all the cabinets themselves. Nothing. After 15 minutes of searching, I proclaimed, "It's gone. I can't believe it's gone. It was my favorite, and now it's gone." And my heart just broke. (Ok, I'm being a little dramatic, I know.)
Why was it my favorite? First of all, it was the pancake turner that I had in college when my roommate and I moved out of the dorm and into an actual apartment for our senior year. I remember that my grandma, Josephine, helped me buy kitchen items that I needed for the apartment and since we were both on VERY limited budgets, the items we purchased were from dollar racks at discount stores. I believe the pancake-turner was one of those items. Second, my pancake-turner was old and run-down, but worked like a charm. It slid beautifully under any item I was cooking or baking. It could run circles around those fancy, $50-stainless steel spatulas. My pancake-turner looked very similar to the photo below, except mine was brown, with a brown wooden handle.
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| Google image search found at spreadshirt.com |
How could my favorite pancake-turner just disappear? Do we have ghosts in this house? Since it is only CT and me in this house, I know for a fact that CT wasn't using the pancake turner. Katie and Ella? Nope, they never play with my kitchen utensils. The only explanation I can come up with is that I went on "automatic pilot" mode.
Automatic pilot mode happens to me ever so often -- I just do something so automatic that I don't even have to think about it and then when I try to recall doing the task, I just can't remember doing it. A perfect example is closing the garage door. I pull the car out of the garage and stop to close the garage door and put on my seatbelt before driving away. How many times have I gotten to the end of our subdivision only to ask myself, "Did I close the garage door?" Then I circle around the block and back to my house only to find the garage door, of course, is closed.
Have you ever done that? Gone on automatic-pilot mode and not remember doing something? Well, that is the only explanation I have for the missing pancake-turner. That, and I was just completely absent-minded. Perhaps, while cleaning the kitchen and dishes, I absent-mindedly threw the pancake-turner in the garbage can instead of placing it in the dishwasher. CT even tried to go through the garbage bags to see if he could find it. Nothing. It is just gone. Gone. Forever. CT said, "Hon, it's ok, just buy another one." But it's not the same. It never will be the same. Some things can't be replaced.
Now, I realize in the overall scheme of things, this means nothing. Small potatoes. Absolutely nothing. I mean, it is a
