Wooden Spoon

Ahhh the wooden spoon, or in this case 2 bamboo spoons from the Nataniël Collection, is normally just a wooden spoon used for cooking but in my case it stirs a little further. In my high school years a wooden spoon was usually given to someone who continually stirs throughout the year, in other words a stirrer of sorts. Most cases it was a award given to the runner up or a losing team or individual, the losers.

But for me it goes even further back to the last year of my primary schooling in Kokstad, yes that far back. I remember the traumatic incident very clearly. It was one evening after supper and I as usual was washing dishing and my two siblings were drying. Theresa complained that I wasn’t rinsing the dishes and they were full of soap spuds. My stepdad who must have had a hard day at work and had just about enough of us squabbling kids, jumped up and grabbed a wooden spoon and proceeded to give me a hiding. The poor wooden spoon couldn’t handle the abuse and broke in protest which didn’t help the cause as I burst out laughing.

Now you must know that laughing while getting a hiding only makes it worse. My trick was to scream my lungs out before even a hand was laid on me. The screaming helps to shorten the punishment as I hoped the neighbours would hear but it was usually my mom who pleaded for my dad to stop. But laughing well it didn’t help at all, hence the wooden spoon incident is still engraved in my mind to this day nearly 37 years later.

Now today, Day 2 of the year being a public holiday, most shops closed early and we ended up in a store which we don’t normally frequent. It was here walking up one of the aisles that these bamboo spoons caught my eye as memories flooding back of that incident of washing dishes. Now I enjoy Nataniël as an artist but how low have you gone with these product endorsements.