In the Beginning...

Now that I know that at least 3 people have read this, there's but one questionthat I know is on everyone's mind:

What is a butter story?

For those of you whose zip code is not 06804 or privileged enough to be "in the know," I'll enlighten you here.

Reader Beware: It's not a pretty story.

The original Butter story goes something like this:

First some exposition:
In the 8th grade, my school made all the kids go on an "Outward Bound" trip at the beginning of the school year. Basically it was a chance for all of the new kids (like me) to spend some time with the old kids and make some friends.

For those of you not familiar with it, our OB trip consisted mainly of team-building activities such as ropes courses, a 3-day camping trip with some delightful rice pudding (but that's a different story for a different time), waking up at 6 am to run down a narrow path in the pre-dawn light and jump into a freezing cold lake, and having the crap scared out of you so much during a game of manhunt that you had hold hands with a bunch of guys you had just met just to make sure you all made it back to the lodge without being sliced to bits by the serial killers and man-eating demons that haunt the forests of northern England.

In between all of this we had to eat (of course). The food was terrible. On the one hand, it was institutional food, which meant it was pretty much mystery meat with a side of mush. On the other hand it was English cuisine, which meant it was pretty much mystery meat with a side of mush and a cup tea every afternoon at four.

Now that that's out of the way, the story:
One day, my new friend and I walk down to the cafeteria for breakfast (or maybe it was lunch - anyways that's not important). As we're going through the line, picking out what we want to eat, we come across a scoop of something in a little bowl. A heated exchange developed between myself and my friend that went something like this:

"Dude, grab me some of that ice cream."
"Ice cream? Where?"
"Right there, in that little dish."
"Dude, that's not ice cream, it's butter."
"No way, look at the color. It's definetly ice cream."
"Come on, who would serve such a small bowl of ice cream? It's butter."
"Come on, look at it. It's scooped like ice cream."
"No way man. You try it and tell me what it is."
"No. What if it's butter. You try it if you want the butter so bad."

So we tried it. And it was butter.
Or maybe it was ice cream. I can't remember.

With that in mind, I give to you the definition of a butter story:
Any story told that in and of itself contributes nothing to the conversation. It is absolutely, completely, and utterly pointless, not only in its moral (indeed, butter stories often are characterized by anything that can remotely be described of a moral, point, insight or otherwise), but in the way it fails to advance the conversation beyond the story itself.

So that's the butter story in all its glory. I hope you enjoy what will surely be many more to follow.
Love,
Jake