Count Spatula Where Are You?

Early this morning, it hit me like a can of yams upside my keppy. Oh, dear God in heaven, no. Where did it go? I know I put it in the cart with all the 853 other Thanksgiving-related items. I can see it now, resting atop the cranberries, looking so festive. But then... where did it go? Did it slide into the DMs (Delicious Marshmallows), get lost between the parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, and... and... fall through the cart into oblivion? Don't you get it? When something I need pulls a disappearing act, I don't realize it for hours and hours. I go about my business, obsessing about the 18 people who expect to be fed and the cooking of the turkeys and the basting and the yams and the timing of everything. And then, suddenly, I think of the very important item in question: A rubber spatula. Simple and elegant. Pretty and new. Doesn't the universe understand my French daughter-in-law is teaching me how to make madeleines? One Proustian bite and all my happy memories will come rushing back, shoving the trauma out like an uninvited guest. Even better, we'll be the only home in America to serve madeleines on Thanksgiving. I'm sure of it. But it won't happen without a nice, new rubber spatula. On top of which, I don't want to go back to the market. There's only one solution to this huge, unwieldy dilemma: Make longtime hubby go.

I don't know this woman, but she looks fun.