Somewhere down deep inside a grain of an atom buried deep in one of my less-vital organs — my gallbladder, perhaps, or my heart — I have buried the knowledge of the fact that when Jack and I moved in together I was the one who had to give up my vacuum cleaner, the one my mother bought me. Even though his was newer and better. As were his pots and pans. Better than the ones my mother had bought me.

His silverware, though! It was from a previous relationship and I found it kind of prissy, frankly, so I kept all my ugly, rusted sporks and put them in a red ceramic jar above the sink for those times we ran out of butter knives or whatever and just needed an extra utensil that wasn’t a finger or the spoon I once used to clean out the litter box.

So when we moved into this place three years ago, Jack’s mom gave us a housewarming gift of a whole bunch of money. Since we’d already replaced the dishes he bought with his ex, it was now the silverware’s turn.

Since Jack had made pretty much every aesthetic decision during the renovation, he told me to pick the new silverware. Oh, joy. I chose this stuff, which astute readers will note is shown having been hastily jammed into a box in which it does not belong.

*sob*

No, that’s because

*DEEP BREATH*

that’s because half the teaspoons disappeared into the mouth of hell itself, for all I know, and could not be replaced with the same pattern because Pottery Barn Is An Ass. So Jack, who loves fixing problems INSTANTLY and WITHOUT FUSS with his infinite online shopping wisdom, ordered a whole new set of flatware (with extra teaspoons!!) for $99 from Crate and Barrel.

“What are we going to do with the old silverware? We can’t throw it out!” I wailed.

“We’ll use it for camping,” said Jack calmly.

“CAMPING?!”

“Fine, why don’t you save it to use after the divorce.”

“I will. I’m going to start a divorce hope chest.”

I’m sure this sounds pretty goddamn shallow when the rest of the world is caving in on itself, but I really liked that silverware. It was the only thing I felt really reflected me in the entire goddamn house; it was weird and impossible to keep from getting tarnished and it was mismatched and heavy and fun. If you understood that silverware, you understood me. I had never even used three of the larger spoons. Look at that patina!

three spoons

New flatware:

new flatware in drawer

Functional, simple, clean, dishwasher safe. You can’t tarnish this stuff with anything short of a blowtorch.

So I moped around for a week feeling as though my aesthetic was completely unwanted, and that thereby the very qualities that made me me were considered frivolous and unsound by the man I’m supposed to have married for love.

Yes, I briefly equated the replacement of my silverware with wholesale rejection of my self.

I suppose if I were younger and less resilient I’d be looking for a new place to live right now. Instead, I busted out the red enamel jar I had originally used to hold my superfluous sporks when we first met, thereby reusing the original solution for a new but similar problem:

silverware jar

Thus we have come full circle. So fuck that new silverware!

Except the teaspoons, those I like.