It's never the big things that make youth shake their heads, roll their eyes and shudder at parental uncoolness. Most of the suffering comes from little details thoughtlessly overlooked by the elders.
Sometimes it's the plaster.
Whenever a schoolmate asked to use our family bathroom in Alexandria, we had to endure the humilitation of a massive cracked plaster out-cropping, splitting away from the wall and threatening to crash onto the toilet tank with the very next door slam. But it clung there for years, like some teetering remnant of a stone-age earthquake as we sheepishly answered the inevitable inquiries from startled, eye-blinking friends. Our parents just had other priorities, it seemed, and only after we graduated from high school did they ever get around to repairing the wall of shame.
Sometimes it's the forks.
Last Sunday the issue came to a head, as our middle-aged daughters finally put it all out on the table, so to speak, and scolded us for our cheesy silverware.
At any picnic, our every day forks would be first class. No plastic breakables for us. No sir. Made of a thin but durable, bendable steel, they have four sharp tines and are dishwasher safe. They may lack heft and size, but we've never broken one yet. You can get a dozen for a couple bucks. You never worry about losing one when you clear the table. We bought about three dozen at Target when we were giving a big picnic buffet back in the 80s and they somehow just found a permanent home in the silverware drawer.Yes, we have legacy silverware as well. That's the good stuff we hardly ever use, shined and stored in a felt-lined case over there in the hall, waiting for the next company to come. Perhaps we took it out when you came over. It's very nice. Polished steel. Heavy. Special. Classy. Certainly not for our every day use.
We've been happily using the good old picnic forks at table every day for decades. Never noticed a problem.
Our daughters always have, it turns out, and perhaps their impressionable friends, who maybe weren't served with the good forks that day.
There's just no excuse for such tawdry table service, we were told Sunday. You can go to a thrift store and get a very nice inexpensive set that won't make you feel like you're eating at a soup kitchen. And you can use them for every day. The forks you use every day are really bad, our daughters agreed.
But despite these directed comments, our threshold for acquiring prouder forks probably wasn't lower appreciably. We just nodded and smiled and expressed mild good intentions.
Our middle daughter, the one in charge of peacemaking and general appearances, must have sensed this. Yesterday a mysterious envelope from her appeared in our mailbox. Inside, wrapped in a bow, was our starter kit: A pair of very nice, used, hefty, substantial, polished steel forks with a Western Hotels logo discreetly embossed on the back side.We get your kind hint, dear child. We'll try to do better.
