The Superstitions attached with Putting the Silverware Away

Daily Prompt: Putting the Dishes Away

I am a very messy person. Messes follow me at work, at home and even on the subway. I just leave everything lying about. I take great pride in being messy. There is research out there that says that messiness is a sign of a creative mind. I like being creative. Therefore, I am ok being messy. I also aced my LSATs a while ago—you know the so-called logic test to get into law school. I am logical and creative. I get a kick out of saying that. I like to think I can creatively win any argument.

Anyway, at my office you will find sugar packets, drawers filled with alcohol (unopened but there just in case) and about 100 pairs of shoes. I have papers strewn about and little notes to myself everywhere. At home, it may even be worse. My home office floor is littered with yellow pads with hundreds of notes to myself. I love yellow pads. There is something comforting about using blue ink on a yellow sheet of paper. Do you know that the color yellow is very often associated with a calming effect? Thus, I frantically write my thoughts on yellow sheets and immediately feel calm and goal-oriented.

By the very nature of my messy state of being, one could guess that the household chore I detest most is cleaning up or perhaps doing laundry.  Not so. I actually like cleaning up. I get into these frantic modes where I make everything messier in the vein of trying to clean up. Have you ever seen the show Gilmore Girls about a mother and daughter who drink too much coffee and have very sharp, fast-paced witty banter? Anyway, there is a scene in one of the episodes where the daughter comes home to find her mother seated on the floor with hundreds of magazines about her. The daughter sighs knowing all too well what this scene meant. Her mother had the good intention of cleaning up and had the zest for it. Then she got tired and didn’t want to do it anymore and therefore the magazines remained on the floor. That is me-everyday.  I like cleaning up, for a while. Then I get tired.

I outright hate putting silverware away after it has been washed in the dishwasher. I don’t mind putting away the dishes. I hate putting away the forks, knives and spoons. They are so small, that as I speed through trying to put them away, they inevitably slip and fall. Of course, the fact being that I am a highly superstitious Puerto Rican, if silverware falls to the ground it means something.

A fallen knife means that a fight/argument will ensue that day. A fork means that a man will be stopping by and a spoon means that a woman will be stopping by. Now, if a fork or a spoon fall that means that I have to then clean the house because we will be having unexpected (although superstitiously expected) guests.  Of course, if a knife falls I am in a hyper-alert state of being. I will be looking out all day for any potential miscues that could lead to an argument. I also scan way ahead on the street and the subway just to make sure I avoid any crazy people looking for a fight. There are those, you know, on the streets of New York. Just yesterday two pregnant women got into a fistfight on the train. Pretty unreal, eh?  Anyway, putting silverware away just leads to an overall sense of being jittery. Add on top of that my three cups of coffee a day, I am bound to be a whole nervous messy being.   Of course there is also the problem of mistakenly cutting oneself while hurriedly putting the silverware away.

At the end of it all, there is no good that can come from putting the silverware away.  J

Here’s to Superstitious Thursday

Other Daily Prompt Responses:

Your backpack is a portable laundry line

Nola Heart, Texas Roots

Housework: doing it and doing it and doing it well

The Wandering Poet

The Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss

Boom: by Tnkerr

These Clothes Won’t Arrange Themselves

Don’t Make me do the Cooking

Home, Housework, Pah