I found myself wondering: do we need butterless days?
Perhaps we pop a sticker on the fridge: No Spread Sundays or Dry Toast Tuesdays.
A national initiative. Ads on the radio.
“This message brought to you by the Ministry for Creamy Constraints.”
Please don’t overthink who would be the Minister of Creamy Constraints.
But after one square of Vogels scraped raw across the roof of my mouth, I quickly abandoned the idea.
No butter? No way … That’s a bridge too far for this country.
After all, we are the land of cows and toast.
And that got me thinking.
Maybe all this talk about butter is making things worse.
The more we churn it over, the more serious it starts to feel.
Maybe if we cut back on the dairy in our dialogue, we could ease the national tension – stop letting butter live rent-free in our heads and our headlines.
Because butter’s not just in our fridges – it’s baked into our idioms.
We butter people up. We get the butterflies. We let things melt like butter. We know which side our bread’s buttered on. And if someone seems a bit too composed? Well, butter wouldn’t melt in their mouth.
It’s everywhere. Lavish. Creamy. Reckless. And a constant reminder!
In this climate, we should be conserving it – both in the kitchen and in conversation.
Take buttering someone up. That used to mean a little flattery.
These days, that’s practically a financial transaction.
And butterflies – whimsical, sure.
But should we really be naming fluttery insects after a luxury dairy product? I say no.
Let’s rename them something honest, like multicoloured compound-winged post-lava air dancers. Less appetising, more realistic.
Butterfingers? That used to be a light insult.
Drop something now, and it’s an act of financial self-sabotage. You didn’t just fumble – you fumbled a week’s worth of golden equity.
Let’s rebrand that to doing a Jeff Wilson in 1994. Still hurts.
And knowing what side your bread is buttered on?
That’s just smug in this economy. It assumes there’s butter on your bread at all. We should all be grateful just to have bread.
And while we’re at it, can we talk about the butter knife?
That’s a pretty presumptuous name for an object that now lives mostly in shame at the back of the cutlery drawer.
These days, it should be called a “special occasion spread wand” or “creamed gold applicator”.
It doesn’t cut anything, and let’s be honest – most of the time it’s just a vehicle for disappointment.
You reach for it, hopeful … then remember you can’t afford butter.
Thanks for the reminder. (Like a knife in the back.)
In some homes, the butter knife now serves nobler duties – like spreading peanut butter, Nana’s plum jam, or scraping the last bit of Marmite from the jar with a quiet sigh.
Perhaps the term butter knife should be retired altogether, like an old sports jersey, and replaced with condiment trowel.
Language, like leftovers, can be repurposed. And we’re good at that. Always have been.
When times get tight, Kiwis don’t sulk – we get creative. We turn old tyres into garden swans. Old tyres into swings.
We might not have the funds to throw butter around the way we once did, but we’ve still got humour. We’ve still got ingenuity.
So here’s to speaking with butter-level restraint.
To spreading joy instead of butter. To saving our blocks for special occasions, and our buttery metaphors for when they really matter.
Because while butter might cost the earth right now, imagination is still free – and the satisfaction of getting creative and having a laugh in tough times?
That’s worth its weight in gold.
Or, as they say these days … butter.
