When in the course of holiday events it becomes necessary to form a more perfect union among families by establishing peace and ensuring domestic tranquility, a just consideration for the fallibility of mankind requires some etiquette:
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that bread-crumbs, mashed potatoes, bits of cooked vegetables, and other things on a dinner plate all have a briefer shelf-life than butter. That introducing these foreign matters into butter will, therefore, cause it to spoil before its time. Furthermore, that many people are displeased, or outright disgusted, to find the communal butter on the family table besmirched with matter from every plate.
Nor is such besmirching an inevitable state of affairs. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
That butter should be treated like every other food upon the table. It should have its own serving utensil. Just as the dish of mashed potatoes in the center of the table has its own spoon, so, too, should the butter have its own knife. Diners should use this knife to convey a portion of the butter to their plate, not their food, then use their own knife to spread it on whatever they choose. It is for this express purpose that each place at a table is provided with its own butter knife. It would be a breach of manners to take up one's individual spoon and commence eating directly from the family bowl of mashed potatoes; so, too, is it a breach of etiquette to use the communal butter knife on one's own bread.
To secure the pursuit of happiness at the dinner table, such basic manners are instituted among families. For the support of these manners, and to ensure BUTTER'S RIGHT TO INDEPENDENCE FROM CRUMBS, we mutually pledge our attention, our care, and our holiday appetites.
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In a seaport town in the late 19th-century Pacific Northwest, a group of friends find themselves drawn together —by chance, by love, and by the marvelous changes their world is undergoing. In the process, they learn that the family we choose can be just as important as the ones we're born into. Join their adventures in
The Tales of Chetzemoka
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