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There are some “American things” that need to be binned.

Joanne Black

The shipping container with almost all my family’s personal possessions was delivered just before Christmas. I would like to say that the removers made a terrible mistake and accidentally delivered us three families’ possessions but, alas, it was all ours. Among the kitchen paraphernalia were a few butter dishes because in the US, where butter, like bread, does not seem to go off, butter dishes are a thing. You leave the butter on the bench all day and all night and the next day until the block is used up and, somehow, in between times, it does not turn the colour of the highlighter on Microsoft Word or go rancid. I think I would like to know the explanation until I did know and then I would wish I didn’t. And once I knew it I could not unknow it, so I just accept that American butter not going off is just a thing, like having a man as President who is manifestly unsuitable for the role. The butter. The President. They’re just American things.

Because I own a lot of china, the poor “removalists” in the US had the mindless job of wrapping piece after piece of tea set, plates and enough mugs that if I lived in Franz Josef and the road was cut off, I could invite a thousand stranded tourists around for coffee and they could each have their own mug. As mentioned, there were also several butter dishes in the kitchen and, at the end of July, one of them had the butter in it that we were using at breakfast the day the packers arrived.

As the job progressed, I guess automaton mode kicked in and the packers reached for the next piece – wrap, pack, next, wrap, pack, next, etc, gradually moving along the bench from which I had taken my toast, but left behind the butter. Wrap, pack …

Exactly four and a half months later, in Wellington, I was in the reverse process of unwrapping piece after piece when I came upon the glass-covered butter dish, unrolled it from the wrapping, et voilà! The dish was complete with a partially used block of butter – and it looked fine. Gingerly, I took the glass lid off, expecting my next memory to be coming around on the kitchen floor having been overcome by rancid butter fumes, and … nothing. It was fine. It was the same pale yellow it had been when I’d bought it. The only difference was that odourless would not have had a u in it when the butter left the US, but it had a u when it arrived in New Zealand.

I got rid of the butter, but I did wonder a little about the zillions of dollars cosmetic companies spend on developing anti-ageing creams. Whatever it is they do to butter in the US is the answer, but, of course, I don’t want to ask the question.

The funny thing about New Year’s resolutions is that all through the year I think of random things that I vow I will either do or refrain from doing “next year”, but when next year comes, I have forgotten what they were.

Naturally, one resolution is to save the planet. But while that aspiration is heroic in intent, it lacks the necessary specificity to create an action plan. How, exactly, are any or all of us going to save the planet?

Feeling still traumatised by unpacking the possessions of those three families who together owned stuff that looked exactly like ours, much less consumption has to be on my list. That’s it then. No internet shopping; stay home and watch Greta Thunberg on TV. There, that wasn’t so hard after all, was it?

How, exactly, are any or all of us going to save the planet?