Excalibur the Kitchen Knife

My new kitchen knives just arrived. They’re the replacement for Excalibur the Kitchen Knife. And now Excalibur’s lying dormant in the enchanted lake (spatula drawer).

The new set came with 17 knives in all. They came in a big wood block — 8 steak knives, 1 cheese knife, 1 bread knife, and 7 others that surely serve some specific knife-like purpose. It’s an embarrassment of food-cutting riches.

Now, the furnishing of my new home has involved the purchase of furniture, every single thing that belongs in a kitchen, tools to fix broken things, cleaning products, and approximately four thousand other items. I’m basically building a household from scratch.

Until these new knives arrived, I had only one knife. I call him Excalibur the Kitchen Knife. If 42 consecutive cooking tasks required the use of a knife, I used and washed and reused Excalibur 42 times. He’s a trooper. (Yes, I’m referring to Excalibur as “he,” not “it.” If you don’t like it, get your own Excalibur kitchen knife and call it what you will.)

More to the point, upon occasion I have enjoyed pulling Excalibur from the enchanted lake (also known as my spatula drawer), gripping the handle, and raising him high in the air whilst yelling “Excalibur!” In each instance, I was, of course, talking to Morgan Le Fay, the Fisher King, Lancelot, Galahad, Bedivere, Igraine, Sir Gawain, Merlin, and Percival, most of whom reportedly don’t live in my new home.

Now that I own a set of knives for every imaginable culinary purpose, Excalibur’s lying dormant in the enchanted lake. What’s worse, I no longer have daily proof that I’m the true queen and divinely appointed heir of Uther Pendragon. I’ve amped up domesticity levels to 11 but dulled the sheen of my former daily conversations with the Lady of the Lake, who also reportedly doesn’t live in my home.

Is it possible I have lost more than I gained? These are high costs indeed.