butterball hell..

This man knows what's up:

My wife LOVES the butterbell. If you don't know, it's a cup that holds butter and it sits upside-down in a larger cup of water.

1. It "solves" a problem that doesn't exist. It's supposed to prevent the butter from going bad in a traditional butter dish by creating a seal with the water. Never once have I seen butter go bad in a dish. That doesn't happen in a normal household that uses butter. The butterbell makes it more likely to go bad because now it's floating in water which harbors bacteria. The bell can't be considered "sealed" if you're using it frequently to scoop out butter, probably getting breadcrumbs in there and touching it.

2. It's second failure is in keeping it soft. The water is supposed to act as an insulator to keep the butter from getting cold. But it's very little water. Not much insulating power. My house has a furnace. It's a steady temperature inside. The butter wouldn't get hard on the counter even without the butterbell.

3. Floaters. Often there are little bits of butter that fall out and float around in the water. You're not putting that slimy wet butter on your toast. That bit is getting thrown out when you clean the butterbell.

4. Cleaning. The butterbell needs to be cleaned before you load it again. Both parts tend to get messy. Put it in the dishwasher and take it out 12-24 hrs later you're ready to load it again except wait-

- (of course the butter dish also needs cleaning but the next part is what makes the cleaning so aggravating)

5. Loading it with butter. You can't load it with cold butter from the fridge. Did you remember to take it out and let it warm up first? No? Okay so now that the bell is cleaned you can put a stick of butter on the counter until it's soft. But it's dinner time and you just chopped the onions. you don't have time to mess with that: you need some butter now ready to go, so you take some butter right off the stick.

6. Now that you have some time to load it up you grab a butter knife and scoop it in. This part is fun actually. Smushing it all up in there and swirling the butter knife just right to give it a little spiral shape. But the bell holds somewhere between 1 and 2 sticks so

7. Get another half a stick out? Or just use what you have in the butterbell until you repeat the process? Or leave out a full 2nd stick to soften but only load half? Seems like you can never get just the right amount.

8. You can't fit the spatula into the bell to scoop out butter.

9. The water will sometimes slosh out of the bell.

10. With all this hassle, most of the time the butter just sits in the wrapper on the counter raising the question: Why do we even need the bell?

Sorry for all the hate. Thank you for listening to me. My wife loves the thing because it's cute and it's ceramic. For her that's all that matters. I can't tell her I hate it because it will break her sweet heart.

EDIT: #11 - Now I'm reading that you're supposed to change the water every 2-3 days? I can barely keep my houseplants alive, how am I supposed to remember to do that?