REPORT: Washed Fork To Never Again Reach Drawer From Drying Rack
SHREVEPORT, LA—In a scathing report, the National Silverware Council of America has found that a fork just washed by journeyman carpenter Derek Fiers, 26, will likely never again be properly placed in the fork section of his kitchen’s cutlery drawer organizer.
“We initiated a study of Mr. Fiers’ dish-washing proclivities,” said National Silverware Council head Erica Fontaine. “While it gives me no pleasure to say so, we find that the outcome with the highest level of probability is that Mr. Fiers will use this just-washed fork directly out of the dryer rack, then wash it and put it back in the dryer rack, ad infinitum.”
The fork, originally acquired by Fiers from a former roommate whose space he converted into a home office after deciding to live in the apartment alone, has not visited the silverware drawer since Q2 of 2019.
“Yeah, so I moved out of there a couple of years ago, and since my girlfriend I moved in with had stuff, I just said Derek could keep my silverware, remembered Dario Bononi, 30. "I think that fork was in there. I remember Derek getting it out of the drawer to eat some melon cubes. He washed it right away, and was like, ‘I’ll put that away later.’ I guess if that happens now it would still qualify as later.”
While the stakes of putting a fork away properly or not might seem low, psychologist Lara Sydney wrote in a paper soon to be published in Kitchen Psychology Quarterly that the magnitude of a potential decision by Fiers to break the cycle could prove enormous.
“Can a fork be in the little silverware basket indefinitely? Sure. Technically,” said Sydney when reached for comment. “But idling there makes it a vector for dirt and bacteria in the open air of a perpetually humid environment. And anyway, the drawer is where it belongs. The drawer is where it can sleep comfortably. And silverware needs its rest.”
And the benefits would extend even further, per a Facebook post by Fiers’ former girlfriend Tara Sweeney.
“Derek needs to get his shit together,” wrote Sweeney. “If I saw him finish one thing, I would consider taking him back. Like specifically, put away the dishes in the rack. And I would gladly put that in writing.”
Unfortunately, all indications point towards the fork – one of those weird IKEA ones – remaining in a torturous limbo, endlessly cycling between the sink, the rack, a plate, and the sink again.
“Kill me,” the fork broke its silence to plead in a public statement. “I cannot countenance decades of this life. Forks were not made for this. Put me down the disposal where I’ll rattle around until my tines are too fucked up to use and he throws me away. I don’t want to die, but death would be a blissful blessing if it let me finally come to a place of rest.”
