Curse The Spork!

I was thinking of things that aren't truly necessary and truly don't help mankind. On the list is the spork.

If you use it as a spoon, you can scratch your lips -- or worse yet, the inside of your mouth -- with the prongs. Now if you ever have tried to put a bandage on your lip, it won't stick because it's too wet. God help you with a cut in your mouth caused by misuse of spork.

If you use it as a fork, it usually doesn't keep the piece of food you want to cut pinned down. When you keep stabbing at it, the spork's handle often breaks. That leaves you a small handle to grip. And if you ever had tried to use a spork with a very short handle ... you have my sympathy.

I won't call the spork a piece of silverware; that gives it a dignity it doesn't deserve and is a true misnomer.

Wikipedia has an entry on the spork. If you want to read it, click here.

I didn't know that backpackers often use it. I'm not an outdoorsman, so i didn't know that. If i offended any backpackers with this post, i apologize.

But i say this in my defense. Sporks are often used in places like fastfood restaurants, school cafeterias, and prisons. I don't like those three institutions and try to stay as far away from them as i can.

By the way -- you never find a spork as a regular piece of cutlery at your better restaurants.

Some people are trying to find a place for the spork in the greater scheme of things. Here is one of their efforts. I saw it recently on the net: