On Tablespoons

2. November 2008 by Joe Gergen.

All I want for Christmas is a tablespoon. This is a significant moment in my life. I haven’t wanted anything for Christmas since I was ten. So, to want at all is significant. My spartan and minimalist existence has trained me to have little desire for physical things (except for chocolate).

Why and where did this disturbing rift in my psyche occur, you might ask. Well, it began with the tapioca. Yes, the tapioca. The tapioca that did not quite set right. Half set into slightly too firm lumps, the other half runny cream. I needed a knife to cut the one, a cup to drink the other.  Don’t get me wrong. It tasted good, since really bad things would have to happen to make that much milk sugar and vanilla taste bad. So why the issue. Because half the joy of eating tapioca is smooth, creamy, puddingesque textual sensation combined with the sweet creamy flavor. And I was robbed of that and I will not let that stand because I know how to make tapioca.

You see, it all started a couple month ago when I was cooking something and somehow I managed to break my tablespoon. I have no recollection of how it broke, though I distinctly recall thinking no big deal, I don’t cook that often or that precisely. In fact there are few things that I cook the same way twice. But despite being an erratic cook, I do know that there are certain things that need to be precise: baking and obviously now, tapioca. So since I am a minimalist at the time of the tablespoon breakage I decided there was no need to panic and buy another tablespoon and in fact it was one less physical possession that I would have to deal with.

Wrong! Obviously a tablespoon can be a good part of your life, since in making the tapioca I had to approximate the tablespoon amount and clearly got it wrong and therefore I suffered because of it. I mean, Prufrock measured out his life in coffee spoons so there clearly must be something there.

So that’s why I am putting a tablespoon on my Christmas list. And I am changing my definition of minimalist from zero possessions to zero possessions plus one tablespoon.

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