The private life of teaspoons

Teaspoons Research:

"'At this rate, an estimated 250 teaspoons would need to be purchased annually to maintain a workable population of 70 teaspoons,' they wrote in Friday's festive edition of the British Medical Journal."

Disturbingly, the Australian scientists have done nominal studies on how differing environments for small, inanimate objects might be inhospitable to the survival of teaspoons.

"The report clearly raised more questions than it answered," said a government official who requested not to be named. "We hope to get to the bottom of this as soon as more preliminary studies are committed to figuring out how to best restore the population of the teaspoons."

However, some concerned scientists believe that it may not be enough. A blogger on Teapot noted, "The survival of teaspoons, whether people realize that or not, is significant to the economy. Its value is difficult to measure because it does not fit the economic model of investment and return or supply and demand.

"As people go into 2006, they ought to give the disappearance of teaspoons their highest priority. We need to limit poaching of teaspoons in order to maintain their viability. The declining survival rates should serve as a warning that we have to do something to fix it."

Another blogger at Crockpot offers a different view, "Inanimate objects disappearing has been around since long before human civilization has ever started. What liberal fearmongers have failed to realize is that the earth has always been changing. They have been so nearsighted that they howl at the indifference of the world when the world temperature rises by a mere 1 degree. They have forgotten that the glaciers that have covered the entire North America retreated 600,000 years ago without any human intervention. Indeed it paved the way for the seeds of human civilization. The extinction of the teaspoon is not something to start a hubbub over."

For the scientists in Australia, the long-term effect of the vanishing teaspoon was the least of their concerns. They said, "We're just focused on researching. Our goal is to extrapolate the possible effect of the teaspoon disappearance on the ecosystem."