Many years ago I received a ceramic butter dish as a gift.  It is not particularly fancy and is plain white.  For reasons that I do not fully understand, it felt like the height of being a grown up to have a butter dish.  Nice, soft butter, able to spread evenly at a moment’s notice.

Over time, the dish was put away in a closet and basically forgotten about, chilled butter once again became the reality in our lives.

I recently found the butter dish, and reliving the feeling of full adult-ness, placed it on the counter.

My husband and I have been playing a “fun” game since then.

He places it on the back of the stove, out of the way.

I make dinner and the butter melts, causing me to become annoyed.  I then move the tray back to the counter, where it can be soft but not melt.

The cycle continues.

Finally, the butter had melted too much on the back of the stove and I placed it in the fridge to cool and reset, with the hopes of replacing it on the counter where it would happily supply soft, smooth butter to anyone who needed it.

While cleaning the kitchen together, I made a snarky comment (shocking, I know) about the butter dish, and how “someone” kept moving it to the stove where it would melt.

“Someone,” asked me where I intended it to be, in front of the mixer, in front of the toaster, or on top of the dish drying pad?

I responded, “On the counter,” to which he said, “ok, but WHERE exactly are we keeping this thing, and why?”

Looking objectively at the counter, I realized there was no space in that corner for the tray I had randomly decided that I needed.

My response was something brilliant along the lines of, “I don’t know where, but not on the stove to melt, and we need it for soft butter.” Of this last portion, I was absolutely sure.

He stopped wiping the counter, turned to me and said, “What exactly do we need soft butter for?”

It was at that moment that I knew I was done for.

I follow a keto diet plan.  My husband follows a low carb plan.  My daughter follows a low carb plus fruit plan.

I could not come up with a single thing that we needed soft, warm, ready to spread butter for.

Bread?  Nope.

Corn on the cob?  Pass.

Muffins?  Not here.

Pancakes?  Not so much.

Popcorn? Oh, I so wish.

Not a single thing.

He was able to contain his laughter, while I placed the lid back on the butter tray and placed it back in the fridge, alongside all the other cold, hard, unspreadable butter.

Life is like that sometimes, we make a choice or set a plan, and we can’t bring ourselves to stop it.  Once that plan is set in motion, we are willing to fight our way through, to see it to the end, no matter the cost.

I was annoyed with him, he was annoyed with me, and the whole thing didn’t need to take place at all.

Before we pick that fight with people around, let’s make sure we have a use for the soft butter, not just the idea of it.