A Brief Rant About Spoons

 I went to IKEA the other day to get some extra silverware for the kitchen, and little did I realize that companies were still trying to redesign the shape of spoons.

With just slight tweaks here and there, silverware designers are attempting to overhaul the centuries-old implements we've been using since before agrarianism or even the first episode of "The Simpsons".

Needless to say, all this effort is for naught, because there's always something off about these new designs:

Design Name: TÅNGMÄRLA

What The Designer Was Thinking: "Let's take the reliable shape of the spoon but make it squarer so it surprises the mouth!"

The Result: The spoon clangs around the mouth like a sectional maneuvering inside a tiny foyer.

Using the Name in a Sentence: "If you don't give me some tang, Marla, I'm going to buy you these wildly impractical spoons."

Overall Grade: F

Design Name: ÄTBART

What The Designer Was Thinking: "I am inspired by the shape of a carrot. Let's make the tip pointier!"

The Result: Giving a child cough medicine becomes more dangerous with a spear-tip heading for their precious face.

Using the Name in a Sentence: "Don't throw these spoons at Bart or you'll stab him in his yellow head."

Overall Grade: F

Design Name: FRÖJDA

What The Designer Was Thinking: "Let's make the spoon WIDER with SHARP corners!"

The Result: Everyone but Kermit the Frog will have the corners of their mouth scraped with jagged metal when using these.

Using the Name in a Sentence: "Sigmund Freud, a neurologist, suggests your oral fixation made you buy these terrible spoons."

Overall Grade: F

Design Name: MOPSIG

What The Designer Was Thinking: "I dunno, a reverse teardrop shape?"

The Result: Although the most usable of these IKEA designs, the design allows for the spoon to hold less chili/Cinnamon Toast Crunch/cole slaw, which overall is a minus.

Using the Name in a Sentence: "Grab that mop, Sigmund Freud, and help me clean up this spilled food that fell out of these inadequate spoons."

Overall Grade: F

Design Name: LÖFTESRIK

What The Designer Was Thinking: "Round round round! On a stick!"

The Result: Too wide to fit in your mouth comfortably. To delicate at the neck to hold anything of weight. Looks fancy but is impractical. Like an art student project.

Using the Name in a Sentence: "I löft as Rick tried to eat with his overdesigned spoons."

Overall Grade: F

And Now, Vince's Uncle Roberto with How To Carve a Pumpkin

After emptying a pumpkin of all seeds or pulp, draw a pattern for the face on a clean pumpkin with a felt-tip pen, or scribe the lines into the skin using a pencil. Be sure to make the eyes, nose and mouth large enough; you'll have a hard time cutting out tiny features when you're using a big knife blade to saw through tough skin. Follow your pattern as you cut all the way through the pumpkin. Push the cut-out features gently from the inside of the pumpkin and discard the pieces. Place a votive candle inside the pumpkin to create an eerie glow.

And speaking of eerie glows, a guy in Johnsonville, TN tried to get me to install some glowing neon lights on the underside of my town car. I told him, "I'm running a limo service here, not a f***ing carnival!" That shut him up good.