A little thing I call the Fork

My wife wrote this last night for a creative writing class she is taking.  It cracked me up so I thought I would share:

A Little Item I Call the Fork

    The truest test of whether or not a couple is ready for marriage is if they can survive registering for gifts.  A seemingly simple and exciting task you may think, however, the level of communication and compromise needed far exceeds most couples.  There are “big decisions,” like the sheets and the set of pots and pans.  There are “fun decisions,” like throw pillows and barbeque tools.  And then there are the items that are necessary but hardly stimulating.  One of these items is the set of silverware.  Something needed, that will be used everyday, but hardly something to get worked up over.  However, inevitably, one half of the couple wants the set to match the plates, feel well balanced, not be too fancy, while the second half just wants to leave the store before they loose their mind.  It is here, while standing over rows of gleaming silver, that one half finally says, “What does it matter? It’s a freaking fork, as long as it can get the food to my mouth, who cares?”  And so again, the fork is abused, discounted as the most mundane of objects.
    The fork has been dealt a sorry hand, especially when compared to its siblings the spoon and the knife.  Songs have been written about the “silver spoon” and the knife has been forever immortalized on the arms of many tough, tattooed types.  The knife comes in many shapes and sizes and can be collected and proudly shown.  The spoon offers several options as well, and specialty spoons, like “baby’s first,” can make there way into artfully arranged shadow boxes.  But the fork just sits dutifully in the silverware drawer, waiting for mealtime.  In some countries (and during some meals here) the fork is not even a necessity, having been replaced by the decorated chopstick.  The spoon would never be forgotten (how else would we enjoy our soup?) and the knife would never be given up (so many uses, we would never survive without it) but the fork, well, we know how that story goes.
    The fork seems to me to be the unsung hero of mealtime.  It is the keeper of sanitation and the preserver of clean hands.  Just think of the trials of spaghetti with marinara or a tossed garden salad if the fork had never shown its polished face.  I think we should celebrate the fork, with its stabbing talents and its scooping abilities.  It deserves to be inked on flesh and preserved in assemblages.  So the next time you see an engaged couple debating the “his and hers” bathrobes, remind them to give equal consideration to their forks.