It Would Sit Empty Anyway

Where were you when you first realized you’ve never owned a butter dish?  

Well, strictly speaking, I don't exist, so I don't own any dishes.  This is a little lost on me.  

Fair enough.  It's something that I've never really thought about, but I just came to that realization yesterday.   

Let me take you on a little trip through the past.  

I was heading back to college and it was going to be my first year outside of the dorms, so I needed to get stuff for my new apartment.  This involves kitchen stuff.  While some people go to garage sales (or Craiglist now), that method ultimately proved unsuccessful for me, so I packed up a van and headed to the outlet mall with my mom.  She's reading this now, so be nice.  

We came across a housewares kind of store, where I found all of the stuff I would eventually need, and they were having a sale.  Sale at an outlet store?  Like fun, you say!  Nono...it's true.  There was a sale.  Depending on the color sticker that was on the box of stuff you wanted to buy, you would get an additional discount.  Crappy silverware and a cheap set of pots and pans were easy, but dishes were a little more difficult to come by.  We looked at box after box of dishes that were either too expensive for me (I was a poor college student at the time...so keep that in mind), or were just so ridiculously ugly that I wouldn't be able to keep down whatever food I was trying to eat off of them.  It was that sad.  As sort of a last-ditch effort, we spotted a box of dishes on the very top shelf that was somewhat hidden, somewhat dusty, and seemingly lost to the ages.  It was a full 8-serving set of really heavy dishes that looked just fine once you managed to heft them off of that shelf.  The box had a sticker representing 50% off, so price ended up being something like 20 bucks.  The box made its way into the van.  

Fast forward years later, I have long since sold the crappy silverware at a garage sale, but I still use the exact same set of dishes, even after I could have afforded new ones.  There are only 2 fewer than there were when I bought the set.  A saucer and a cereal bowl met their untimely demise on my kitchen floor, but I've never really felt their absence.  They're still stupid heavy, but they still look nice and they still serve their purpose quite admirably.  I have also since supplemented my dish collection with some salad bowls, more glassware than anyone really needs, and bigger coffee cups.  

But I never bought a butter dish.  

I can't imagine why this bothers me now.  I rarely use butter for anything other than cooking, at which point, having it in a dish is irrelevant.  If I'm spreading something on bread or something, I tend to use soft margarine in tubs (I'm told I shouldn't believe that the product I'm using is not, in fact, butter) simply because it's easier to spread.  I guess it's healthier too, but for the amount of either that I use, it's probably not significant.  

I could easily solve my problem by going to the local housewares chain store (It's literally on my way home from work and also walking distance from my house) and buy a stupid butter dish.  But I'm not going to do that, since I have absolutely no need for one.  It also won't match my dishes, since the pattern has assuredly been discontinued ages ago, and that sort of thing would bother me more than the lack of a butter dish does in the first place.  

So I'm stuck with a complete and total lack of a butter dish, and no foreseeable plans to get one in the future.  If you're coming over for dinner, I hope you like margarine.