Once upon a time, there was a girl who was getting married. She was excited about many things in the days leading up to the wedding, and choosing items for the Registry was one of the best. This was not the case for her Groom, but he went along with her to help choose items for their home. She didn’t realize her Husband-to-Be had such opinions about home decor. She has heard that there are many people who relinquish all say in home decorating decisions, giving one partner free reign over the house. This was clearly not to be the case for me – er, her.

I learned this early, thanks to Dillard’s Bridal Registry and a silverware pattern called Aquarius. I LOVED Aquarius. It was different, felt heavy in the hand (this will play an important role later), pretty, modern. Husband wasn’t a fan from the beginning, but he gave in.

Well, from Day One of wedded bliss, the “heavy in the hand” qualities of the silverware meant it was constantly falling on the floor – sliding off plates on the way to the sink, dropping from the basket in the dishwasher. So our lovely Aquarius quickly became “Damn Aquarius!”

Fast forward 16 years, and somehow, half of our “Damn Aquarius” forks have disappeared. I really don’t know how it happened, but I can only assume they ended up in the garbage – accidentally, of course. And when I searched for replacements, they were $15 a piece. Clearly I have become cheap frugal as I’ve gotten older, because as much as my OCD tendencies would love to have every single piece of silverware in the drawer matching, I’m not going to pay $15 for a fork, especially when I need 10 of them.

And then I remembered that I’ve been using mismatched spoons for years. Back when we were replacing the floors at the old house, my brother came out to help and was appalled at our lack of ice cream spoons. Apparently an every-night-ice-cream habit is a thing, and not having enough spoons to support the habit is a travesty. So one day I came home to 10 new teaspoons from Wal-mart. (Side note: I was pregnant with BB at the time, so I was more than happy to pick up the every-night-ice-cream habit.)

So when I was at the thrift store this week, I saw the stash of mismatched silverware. “It won’t hurt to look,” I thought. So I dug around and found some fun and funky vintage forks. FOR TEN CENTS A PIECE. Sold. No more would I bemoan the fact that we run out of forks before it’s time to run the dishwasher. No longer would I be forced to eat waffles with a spoon. No, I will now have enough forks to make it through the day! I grabbed 14 of my favorite patterns (along with a cute vintage blouse) and took them to the check out. There I remembered that I had a 50% off coupon. That’s right, friends, I got my “new” forks for a nickle a piece. SCORE!

The next morning after breakfast, BG was putting the silverware away in the drawer when she started laughing. “Heeeeeey, where all deese fowks come fwom?!” And she just kept giggling.

Yes, me, too, BG, a full silverware drawer makes me happy, too.

The “If you see a fork in the road” quote by Yogi Berra made me think of my best friend growing up. We met the first day of kindergarten and were best buds all through school. (She was even in my wedding, where I received all the Aquarius.) I don’t remember the details, but at some point in high school, I was at her house and opened her silverware drawer to find one of our spoons in there.

I held it up, and she just started laughing. It had ended up at her house, and her mom wanted to return it, but my friend just wouldn’t do it because it was the “best silverware ever”. We were texting today about it (because I couldn’t remember if it was a fork or a spoon, and because what else is there to text about on a lazy summer day?), and she said that later, my dad gave her a matching fork because she loved it so much.

“If you see a fork [spoon] in the road [at your friend’s house], take it.”