Originally published at: How are there always crumbs in the silverware drawer holder? | Boing Boing
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It is certainly the elves.
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Why is there silverware in the crumbs drawer, hmmm?
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That’s just crummy.
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Close proximity of the toaster?
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Where else are crumbs supposed to go? And in this economy?
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You’ve got silverware?
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First time reading that, I saw “Elvis”, which is even funnier.
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Crumbs on the counter might get swept in whenever the drawer gets opened?
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That weird Americanism of all cutlery being called silverware is a continuous source of bafflement to me.
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Perhaps it’s aspirational?
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Same issue for me, but the toaster is the other side of the kitchen
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I believe it’s a combination of proximity and usage. The cutlery drawer is always under a food prep area. People open that drawer often when prepping food. I have two high food prep areas in the kitchen, but one has the dishrag/towel drawer underneath, and I rarely open that while preparing food. No crumbs there. The flatware drawer is always crumby, even more so when my kids are in town.
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Not too different from using the word cutlery. That word refers to knives in its etymology but gets used as a generic word for eating utensils in general, it’s incorrect but we know what the meaning is. Same with silverware
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It sounds like you have crumb beetles (scarabaeus offa). In a classic case of mimicry, they have evolved to look exactly like crumbs when they retract their legs and head.
They actually spend most of their life cycle in the garbage, where food is plentiful. They make their way to the cutlery drawer only in breeding season (about every two weeks), since it is usually higher up and less accessible to the house centipedes that prey on the larvae. Eventually the cutlery tray is shaken out over the garbage bin and the cycle repeats.
Most experts consider them harmless, but recommend washing the contents of the drawer from time to time to prevent buildup of the byproducts of the mating activity
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Maybe in this dimension…
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Oh, snap!
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No no the crumbs are coming from the same place spoons are disappearing in! There’s spillage from that faraway dimension, always one-way: tea spoons fall in, crumbs fall out:
our cutlery drawers are far more eldritch than we can imagine…
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Two possibilities come to mind. Those crumbs might actually be sawdust rubbing off from the exposed edge of the counter or the drawer frame. Laminate countertops often have an exposed bottom of particleboard which can shed into the drawer when you open it. The other is, of course that it is mouse poo. One time I discovered some fluffy dusty stuff in my drawer and assumed that I must have had the drawer cracked open when I was working at the counter. Wiped if off and forgot about it until I found more in just a couple of days. So I scrubbed down the drawer put everything that had been in it into the dishwasher and inspected every bit of food in the pantry for gnaw marks. There weren’t any, but I put out a couple of mouse traps anyway. Caught one overnight. It wasn’t until months later that I noticed that a vanilla scented candle had gnaw marks all over it. Poor boy had been eating the yummy smelling candle and just getting non-nutritive paraffin for his trouble.
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