Silence of the butter lambs

It's come to this. No eyes. No ribbon.

The Easter butter lamb has always made for a special holiday season. Dinner with the family became special when the sculpted dairy staple made its entrance on the table, ready for spreading on thick slices of fresh, crusty rye bread.

But from a child's point of view, the peppercorn eyes and the red ribbon scarf around the icon's neck made that butter seem like dairy heaven.

So it was highly upsetting to see this year's butter lambs offered without "eyes" and without the proper red flourish. The damn thing just looked like The Sphinx. It looked positively skinny, too, with a poor center of gravity that made it seem as vulnerable as a drunken sailor.

I don't want to think it was pure economics for leaving out the two identifiers that had given the butter lamb its "brand identity." But I'd be willing to bet it was the reason the quarter-pounder had been shrunk to the equivalent of a few stacked pads.

Yeah, our lamb got retrofitted with the forgotten goods. But, just as with Christmas toys, cable TV installation, and dry cleaning, it should have been done right the first time!