The Daily Complaint: Crumbs in the Butter

If there's one thing I can't stand....okay, it's several things: Tiny little toasty trails that taint the pristine butteryness of creamery sticks and tubs.

It can ruin my day.

It starts innocently enough. Someone draws a blade across that golden bar and then scrapes it across the toast. Everything would be fine if that were the end of it. But no. The scraper then sidles that same now-contaminated blade across the dairy ingot and, ugh, I encounter another case of food pollution. Crumbs in the butter.

I know, I know: Such a small thing. I contend that it's actually a symptom of reckless food service that, if left unchecked, can lead to anarchy in the kitchen! If you see crumbs in the butter, look around. Syrup is probably seeping so severly from Aunt Jemima's hat that you can't screw off the top. Ketchup leakage may be forming a red paste so thick it prohibits an easy squirt on a burger. A seal of sauce around the jar lip is so dry it adds crunchy threads to your meatball mix.

I've always been bothered by crumbs in the butter. But the deeper philosophical implications of this negligent attitude only came into clear view after our holiday trip to Universal Studios.

That's right, the theme park in Orlando, Fla. I know it's not a real world (but, boy oh boy, you can really believe that you've stepped right into a real world. Drink the Butterbeer in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Trust me. It's like apparating right into Hogsmeade.).  But I digress.

Universal is, however, inhabited by real people, some who work there and most who are visiting. And it is super clean. No crumbs in the butter here. No sticky residue around the Butterbeer collectible plastic steins. Part of this pristine presentation is, of course, the minions who constantly sweep, wipe, collect, and clean. (And I mean minions literally. A new exhibit is being built on the Universal Studios side based on the flick "Despicable Me." Minion Way is already a well-swept little passage.)

A strange phenomenon occurs in this manufactured reality. People seem to act tidier. When we enjoyed breakfast pastries at Boulangerie, I noticed that tourists assumed the orderly air of the fake world they'd entered. They cleared their spaces. They disposed of their trash. They washed their hands. (It helps that Dyson Airblades are in every single bathroom in Universal. Massaging jets of warm air are half the fun of a toilet run.)

It seems that because a precedent has been set of environmental hygiene, folks are more willing to maintain it. Now I know that without the legions of cleaning elves, this tidiness would break down faster than a lump of cheese on a hot day. But the point is that people appreciate order. Not everyone is good at initiating it, but little actions can help to maintain it.

Little actions like wiping off a crumby knife on a napkin before going in for more buttery goodness. Do this in your own kitchen. Teach the kids to denounce crumbs in the butter. The philosophy inherent in this small action will spread like a tub of Parkay.

Soon, there will be no sticky squirt bottles and greasy spray cans. Soon, we will breakfast at a tidy table with a sunny disposition in a real world that didn't cost $115 dollars admission for a two-day pass. That's the real world that we all share.  And isn't that what community is all about?