3166: Big and Little Spoons

Big and Little Spoons

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Title text: Are you the annoying spoon or the sleepy spoon?

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Explanation

This is one of 52 incomplete explanations: This page was created by a SAME-SIZED SPOON. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

Spooning is the intimate (and sometimes, but not always, sexual) act of lying so that one's fore is directly up against the back of another person. A common colloquial term for people in this position is to refer to the two participants as "big spoon" (the one behind) and "little spoon" (the one in front). Cueball points out that the colloquialism does not have any basis in reality due to how spoons nest; commonly, spoons of the the same size will form a relatively uniform stack, which may be handy with a full complement if Cutlery that is stored together in functional groups, while the spoons of differing sizes would rest awkwardly due to the different curvature in their handles. There may be an exception for a measuring spoon set, or one-person camping set (perhaps small spoon, large spoon, plus knife and fork; or involving hybrid flatware), where one of each type is deliberately designed to be nested/packed against the others.)

The last panel reveals that he is sleeping on the couch, presumably because of his nitpickery regarding the colloquialism. From another room, someone else - presumably Megan - realizes that he is addressing the audience about this, and expresses annoyance that he hasn't let the matter go; Cueball merely insists that he's right, indicating his refusal to let the matter slide.

The title text asks whether you are annoying spoon or sleepy spoon, which, in this context, most likely means to ask whether you are like Cueball (who is annoying) or like his sleepy partner.

Transcript

This is one of 27 incomplete transcripts. Please help by editing it!

[Close up shot of Cueball's head and neck. Cueball is facing the left and has his arm raised.]

Cueball: Some people like to be the big spoon.

[Cueball's face and neck are still the only elements visible. Cueball is facing the right now and has lowered his hand.]

Cueball: Some people like to be the little spoon.

[A big spoon sitting atop a little spoon and a little spoon sitting atop a big spoon are depicted.]

And some brave truth-tellers point out that the metaphor makes no sense because different-sized spoons don't nest right either way. You nest same-sized spoons.

[Cueball is lying alone on a couch.]

...and apparently we sleep on the couch.

[Voice from outside the panel:]

Voice: Why are you still going on about the spoon thing?

Cueball: Because I'm right!

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Discussion

A spoon the size of a couch King Pando (talk) 03:16, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Panel four evoked a genuine out-loud laugh when most of the time I usually only get chuckles. Still my favorite comic that's not about hornyness. 2603:800C:1200:596A:642C:F071:BB63:22A9 03:53, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Should there be a sentence about how sets of measuring spoons are designed to nest? 138.229.156.169 04:51, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Your wish is my command. Though I didn't know it was your wish, as it was also already mine on first viewing, and included thoughts about one-person easy-pack cutlery sets, etc, too, which... well, can also involve compatibly-nesting knorks, and the like, for a theoretical minimum of packing-space 2.98.65.8 11:51, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Can we assume that Cueball doesn't do much of the cooking in this household? If he did, he wouldn't have forgotten about measuring spoon sets. Then again, his roommate (presumed to be Megan) doesn't seem to have mentioned them to him, either. Barmar (talk) 15:10, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

What's with the Royal We in the last panel?--Coconut Galaxy (talk) 08:31, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

I believe it refers to the 'some brave truth-tellers', a set of which Cueball believes he is a member. --KarMann (talk) 11:23, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Randall isn't the first webcomic creator to use this idea: [1] 88.85.135.155 08:53, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

A similar take on it was addressed in another medium in Mallrats. That was more about the arm problem than the relative sizes, though. --KarMann (talk) 11:27, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

"Big spoon" and "little spoon" are not necessarily supposed to be literal descriptions of the spoons referenced by the metaphor – almost like the transferred-epithet form of the hypallage trope in classical rhetoric, in which a descriptor that really applies to the speaker is instead applied to that which is described. "I lit a nervous cigarette." Cigarettes are not nervous – people are. While nesting spoons are of equal size, the enveloping action of the big-spoon role is larger – that which wraps something is larger than that which it wraps. A person taking a big-thing or little-thing role describes their metaphorical spoon as big or little, to imply their own bigness or littleness. Yorkshire Pudding (talk) 13:25, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Aside from certain more trivial topological interpretations (and some more 'tricksy' ones), can I remind you of this? ;) 82.132.236.75 14:14, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Spoons don't wrap or envelop, though. They spoon.

Besides, if you consider the shape of a person lying down and relate it to a spoon, it makes most sense to relate the torso to the handle, and the backs of the legs would become the bowl of the spoon. By that reckoning, the forward person would be the one encircling the rearward one. 82.13.184.33 14:50, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

If your legs are forming more of a bowl-shape than the combination of your torso, arms, and head while you hug someone from behind, I think you might want to see a doctor. (Also, if you're not wrapping or enveloping someone while you're hugging, you're doing it wrong.) 207.195.86.97 01:55, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't know what kind of weird physiology you have, but when I hug someone, my arms make a circle, and are nothing like the bowl of a spoon. They would be more like a ring that someone has, for some reason, attached to the handle of the spoon. Besides, if it's meant to be analogous to nested spoons, such a 'bowl' would be orthogonal to the orientation of the spoon - it would be more of a ladle than a spoon. And the forward person wouldn't be a spoon at all, since they're not doing an empty hug out in front of them - they'd be more of a chopstick or something. 82.13.184.33 09:17, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Point taken, Randall, but did you have to spoon-feed this to us? 2A02:2455:1960:4000:1590:875:94A1:8B73 09:42, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

"instead he's alone on the couch and forked" - I'd suggest that's very much the last thing he's going to be tonight. 82.13.184.33 14:59, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

very odd number of spooning comics for a former nasa physicist 86.139.10.83 16:25, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
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