“It’s so hot, it melted butter!” H- exclaimed as we entered the car after the service.

He immediately and uncontrollably voiced aloud, “Why is there butter in the car?” While silence filled the air, he recounted the latest and most butter filled experiences of their past.

Sure, there was the camping trip to the mountains wherein they stopped at the convenience store to pick up the butter necessary for successful and tasty breakfasts which he forgot to pack–the convenience store who’s possibly-attractive-enough-to-turn-men’s-heads-nine-years-ago-in-high-school-blonde-haired clerk suggestively asked him, “Whaaaaaaa-tcha makin’?” as she rang up the butter-

(A suggestion that he might have accepted if first, he were younger, second, he was not presently reconsidering leaving his daughter alone in the car for so long, and third, he was less aware of divine commands against extramarital fornication with heathen women.)

-But no, he could distinctly picture that box of butter and its remaining three sticks in the door of the refrigerator at home.

The salacious and provocative memory addressed, he now returned to the warm car and continued his interrogation of H-, asking, “H-? Why is there butter in the car? What are you talking about?”

Unperturbed by the question, H- answered, “It’s just a little bit, here on the handle.”

Without turning to view the location, he asked, “Okay, but where did it come from?”

Then he remembered that her bagel was simply buttered–no schmear.

“H-. I still don’t understand,” he rejoined, “Why is there butter on the handle? Where did it come from?” he continued.

“It’s not a lot, daddy,” she said. “I just, you know, had a little extra butter on the bagel and used the napkin to wipe it off and put the napkin in the door handle.”

‘Okay,’ he thought to himself. ‘So we’ve got the origin of the situation explained. Now we need to discuss the how-and-why of the fact that butter does not quite possess the right attributes to base exclamatory remarks intended to indicate uncomfortable realities of life in a car without air conditioning.’

“Yeah, well next time, H-, just eat the butter. Okay?”