Someone Remembers That Thing You Wrote That One Time

I saw the news that Daniel Kraus won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel Angel Down to which I offer my sincere congratulations. It joins a host of literary classics that will forever be remembered by readers. Today, though I want to write about the lesser known works of literature that may not be recalled by anywhere near as many people, but are still taking up space in the heads of a few folks out there.

Also, I am using the term literature very, very loosely. Because the thing is all of us, probably without even realizing it have written something somewhere that somebody is still thinking about. It might not be a novel, a short story nor an essay, but your words still have an impact (no matter how small) on the world. I know I’m not the only one out there who read something once randomly on the internet that has stayed with me.

Stock photo of a woman reading something on her phone wearing a red t-shirt with a butterly graphic on it, where the insect's body is a sticke of butter.

On a near-weekly basis I have cause to remember a Reddit comment I read about butter probably around ten years ago. First off, just an aside to say that Reddit might be one of the last truly useful places on the internet. If I’m doing an internet search for specific information, I’ve gotten in the habit of adding the word “reddit” to my search, because otherwise I just find myself having to wade through SEO-optimized websites filled with dubious information. I mean, you should take anything you read anywhere (including Reddit) with a grain of salt, but you have a better chance of finding useful information there than on the garbage sites currently rising to the top of internet search results.

Okay, back to the butter. It was about ten years ago, and for reasons I no longer remember I left an entire pound of butter out over night. I found it sitting there on the counter in the morning, and I was worried I might need to throw it out. Butter (like everything else) was probably around half the price it is now, but still I hate throwing money away, and so I turned to the internet to ask how long butter could be left out before it went bad. That’s when I wound up on a Reddit thread of someone who asked the same exact question. (I would link to it here, but while I could find newer threads of people asking the age old question of how long butter can be left out of the refrigerator, I didn’t locate that thread.)

While I don’t recall the entire thread, I do recall that one person replied that their grandparents lived on a farm and never refrigerated their butter. They kept it in their pantry, and were relatively healthy people who lived well into their eighties. I think about that little post all the time. In fact, it makes me think of a story my mom or grandmother used to tell about my mom’s grandfather, who was a South Dakota farmer. When he came to visit their home in suburban New Jersey, he complained about the “hard butter” this because they kept their butter in the refrigerator. Despite evidence to the contrary, I keep my butter in the fridge, and thus deal with “hard butter” on a regular basis but still I think of that random stranger’s grandparents and their pantry butter. So, anyway, random person on the internet who made that throwaway comment on Reddit, I want you to know that your words have stayed with me.

I’m still haunted by something I read years ago on the website formerly known as Twitter. Scrolling through my feed one day, I saw someone mention that she learned from someone else that she had been using Xlear wrong. First off, for those of you lucky enough to not be plagued by sinus issues, Xlear is a saline nasal spray. The reason the comment haunts me is because I have no idea how she had been using Xlear wrong. How do you use Xlear wrong? Was she not spraying it up her nose? Was she not using it frequently enough? Was she not really inhaling deeply to get that saline up into the nasal passages? I have so many questions, and since I no longer remember the original poster’s name I will likely never know the answer to any of them. Instead, every time I get out my trusty bottle of Xlear (which is pretty often right now since there are apocalyptic levels of pollen out there) I think of that random thing I read once, and ask myself am I using Xlear wrong?

So, if you ever wonder if things you write make a difference, know that there is probably someone somewhere out there who is still thinking of your words. It might not be the novel you poured years of your life into, but that angry review you wrote after the new vegetable peeler you bought broke the third time you used it is still living rent free in someone’s head.

— Alissa