Crisp Cracker (A Memory Inspired by a Paint Chip)

A small girl, I loved butter with a passion. My parents would take me to the cafe in town (there was only one cafe in town, a greasy spoon affair with questionable cleanliness) and I'd order fried ham. While waiting, I would consume all the packets of butter left in a basket on the table next to the ketchup. I'd unpeal the packets and eat the butter with a spoon.

On chilly days, I'd sit at my grandmother's kitchen table, propped up in a big chair on my knees and beg, plead, for butter sandwiches. My grandmother would dig in a cupboard near the stove for a box of Townhouse crackers, hand me the butter dish and a dull table knife, and let me go at the task of smearing butter on the crackers, pressing them together to make miniature sandwiches, far tastier than bologna on white bread. I'd feast, the crackers crisp, the butter squished inside, erupting through the airholes on the top of the cracker, everything made even better by the abundance of salt.