Saucers

In the traditional basic place setting there are 5 pieces: Dinner Plates; Dessert Plates; Tea Plates; Bowls; Cups and Saucers.

If I consider our kitchen service — the one we use every day — the most frequently used pieces are the dinner and dessert plates.  Not that we have a lot of dessert, but it’s just a smaller plate that is quite well suited for a lunch or a light meal.

From the other perspective, the cups are no more; they disappeared ages ago to be replaced by branded and quirky coffee mugs. Thus the saucers, once used to hold these cups, have no formal purpose and are used only infrequently to hold spoons when cooking.  Tea plates have occasional use; sometimes for dessert as, if we have that serving, it is often quite small.

And so it was that I gazed upon the  accumulated clutter of plates and other things in the kitchen cabinet that I pondered how can the collection be arranged to provide easy access for both unloading and reloading, when it struck me that may be the answer lay not in arrangement but outright removal.  

Removing things from the kitchen cabinet however is a touchy thing. What I consider useless others in the family may think otherwise.  So care must be taken.  Removal is a process, not a single action.  First, the items — saucers in this case — need to be taken from their place in the cabinet and placed on the counter.  This does two things: first it clearly exposes the benefit, which is added space and ease of access to other items.  Second, it postpones the final decision of outright removal allowing a chance for a return to their sacred spot.  

Next comes the conversation of why and then what to do with those removed pieces.  Finally there is the conclusion. If logic were to prevail, then the saucers would be gone; they have no purpose, are too specialised to be repurposed and thus they just take up space.  But this is not a logical argument; it’s an emotional one.  Odd as that may seem.