The Inanimate Object.

I was at work. One of the duties on the list we follow to close up the store each night is to restock the spoons. I grabbed the bucket used to hold the spoons, the same bucket that was once used for our famous "Vermonster Sundae". We don't make those at this store anymore, thank god. Scooping 20 scoops of ice cream for one group of costumers while I've got a line out the door is wretched, so to avoid this scenario we retired the Vermonster. I've never made one.

I stared down at the layers of upright spoons crammed into the half full bucket and on this night, at this moment I became intensely concerned with the ones I could make out at the very bottom. They never get used. Will they ever get used? A spoon's purpose is after all to aid in the process of eating food. Will these spoons ever be paired up with any consumers? Feelings of sorrow and depression overcame me, and then an uneasiness towards these feelings. How odd was it that I would be showing sympathy for a non-living man made object. They were nothing more than plastic eating utensils. Disposable ones, to make it even more ridiculous. No! But the spoons at the bottom will always be buried each night over and over by new spoons! Spoons that I am responsible for placing over the old ones. How long have they been down there!? I mean the spoons are restocked every night by an employee. I have never seen the half full bucket below half full, before being filled tot he top with more spoons.

Then one night not too long ago, it happened. I actually witnessed the spoons dwindling. One by one they were snatched up by costumers and stuck into a serving of freezing cold ice cream. The supply truck hadn't come in yet, and when I searched the cabinets looking for the box of new spoons I was informed we were out of them. There was a box coming in the next morning.

I surprised myself in recalling the night I felt emotional over the spoons eternally resting in the bottom of the bucket, and was now overjoyed. I felt rather childish and silly, but the very thought of even a few of those spoons finally leaving the dark confinements of that bucket was too good. Come on, those spoons I had been feeling sorry for were finally meeting their match in the line of costumers who grabbed at them in need of a plastic disposable spoon to cut out bite size portions of their purchased ice cream.