I buy the same brand, and size, of “butter” every time. I buy the 45 oz. tub of Country Crock. Two pounds and thirteen ounces. I put butter in quotes because technically it’s a plant-based spread. There isn’t any particular reason I get this brand – it’s just what I’ve done for years. I suppose I’m this way with a lot of the things I but at the grocery store… I’m brand loyal because at this point I don’t know anything else. I’m brand loyal because changing involves, well… change. The creature of habit stuff is a post for another day.
Invariably when I near the end of a tub of butter (45oz. – over two pounds), I think about how I’ve ingested over two pounds of this stuff. I don’t know how long it takes me to eat that much butter spread. I only use it on my waffles. For cooking, I use the real stuff. If I had to guess, I get a new tub every two or three months? For a few days/weeks now, every time I go to butter my waffles (which is every day), I’ve been mentally estimating when I might have to buy butter again and if I should be buying a smaller tub. As I get closer to moving out, I begin to think that I shouldn’t buy the big tub next time. I don’t plan on bringing the butter with me. Never mind that I don’t have a new place or new destination or any of the logistics figured out, but I think about how I don’t want to buy too much butter.
This, of course, isn’t about butter, but is instead about the silly and utterly chaotic and nonsensical ways our (or at least my) thinking works (or doesn’t). Of all of the things I could think about at any given moment in my morning routine, two or three times a week I think about how much butter spread I consume and I try to estimate how much butter spread I’ll need over the next month to month and a half. It’s not an all-consuming thought process, but I’m surprised by how inane it is and also how frequently these thoughts pop into my head.
If I had to guess, I don’t spend more than a few seconds or minutes contemplating my butter spread usage. If I had to describe it, I’d say it’s a very low-wattage thought process. It just happens – effortlessly. There’s a minor sense of concern: do I eat too much butter spread, do I need to get more, should I conserve what I have? But once the waffles are buttered and glazed with syrup and the butter spread is returned to its assigned spot in the fridge, my brain usually shifts to thinking about something else. Unless of course I decide to sit down and write about it.