I knew I’d get you with the title. The old bait-and-switch. But what were you thinking? This is a family-friendly newspaper. For shame. 

No, I’m referring to spoon carving, something I’ve become obsessed with over the past five years. And what does this have to do with life in Florida? Well, Florida has lots and lots of trees. More species here than in any other state in fact, I think.

But back to my hobby. In ancient times, spoon carvers were often tinkerers, wandering from village to village. And while villagers knew that the tinkerer came with news and good stories, they also knew they’d better buy the tinkerer’s stuff, or he’d curse their village. 

I too wander around (especially if my wife has sent me to Publix). I tell stories, and I whittle spoons. And when I visit my Etsy store to see if my fellow peasants are purchasing the wares I’ve plied, I sometimes curse. If the clog fits …

This all began when I decided I wanted to become that cool old guy in church who hands out mints. Only better. I, too, would sort through the mothballs in my pocket, but in place of a mint, I’d hand out a toy car. If I did that, I’d be the coolest old man in Florida, possibly the world. People may even name a denomination after me. Old Fart Redeemer has a certain ring to it. 

So with that vision in my head, I began to ply my trade. To start, I needed to look no further than the red mulch my wife had so dutifully spread in our front garden. A few splinters later, and I’d made a sweet little hot rod. Now for the wheels. This took a lot of thought. Like weeks. Finally, I decided to rip off the wheels of one of my son’s lesser favorite Hot Wheels. He only cried a little. After drilling tiny holes in the bottom of my piece of mulch that didn’t at all split in half in the process, voila, I had the perfect toy.

At least it looked great to my deliriously creative mind. Creative denial is a beautiful state of being. How else do you think I write these unbelievably hilarious articles that totally blow everyone’s minds? 

A few days later, my toy car looked like a piece of mulch that someone had stuck wheels on. I gave it to my son. 

I got better. A break came when I began stealing the wheels from my kid’s Lego sets. 

Next, I began carving anything I could think of and landed on spoons. Now, I’ve carved cooking and eating spoons for almost everyone in my life. I even stop people in the street and ask, “You wanna spoon?” I get weird reactions. I chalk it up to the general weirdness of Florida. 

As I’ve whittled my way through the Florida wilderness, I’ve learned a few things the hard way. Like the shrubs at work make terrible spoons. Mostly because they’re poisonous. 

Not knowing what kind of shrubs they were, I did the right thing in wondering if they were poisonous or not. Then I did the wrong thing, I wondered how ancient people figured out if wood was poisonous. Surely, they’d at some point give it just a little lick, right? So I did.

Nothing happened, but then how long does it take poison to, well, poison you? In a panic, I ran to one of my co-workers who does carpentry on the side. 

“Those shrubs are Oleander, which is terribly poisonous. You didn’t lick it or anything, did you?”

“No, why would I do that? It’s just a spoon, for, uh, stuff. That would be stupid.”

Now sweating, and not from Florida heat (though I still blame Florida), I sprinted back to my desk and googled “Is Oleander poisonous?” Google winced. Up popped an article entitled “Top Ten Most Poisonous Plants” at HowStuffWorks.com.

It opened with, “The Oleander, or Nerium oleander, is considered by many to be the most poisonous plant in the world. All parts of the beautiful oleander contain poison – several types of poison.”

I immediately called poison control, and they assured me that since I hadn’t ingested any part of the plant, but had merely licked it, I was going to be okay. However, if I started feeling ill, I should definitely go to the emergency room. On hearing this, my first instinct was to assume that all the poison control hot-liners were having a good wicked cackle at my expense and that I should flee to the hospital post-haste. However, I was beginning to not trust my first instincts.

I didn’t start feeling ill, which is good, because as a rule, I don’t like writing humorous first- person articles about emergency rooms. But now that I think about it, that could very well be the last article I write.  

Now that’s how you end a humorous article – make readers think about hospitals. Ah, I kill myself.