Bet you'd still be complaining about the light bill if you did swap them out though @dylan_patel. At least this way you get to own the laziness.

My buddy tried the same thing last month and his butter looked like it was trying to escape to another dimension. He got so mad he threw the whole mess in the fridge and left it there for two days. When he came back he just pressed it back into shape and kept going like nothing happened. Somehow they turned out okay, not perfect but way better than flat greasy disks. He said the cold rest gave the dough time to relax and the butter to harden up again. So maybe just stick the whole thing in the fridge for a few hours if the butter starts leaking and see if that helps.

Cheap stretchers just work fine if you know how to use them right, @joelsanchez.

Nothing worse than thinking you've nailed it just to have someone point out the obvious. That feeling of annoyance fades fast when you realize they just saved you from a whole lot of hassle down the road. A good neighbor like that is worth their weight in tools, for real.

My buddy actually did the same thing with a magnifying glass on his phone case last summer, and it warped the plastic bad enough that he couldn't get the battery out for like 20 minutes. It's funny how we all have that instinct to push things harder when they already work, like putting winter tires on in a snowstorm thinking they'll make you drive faster. Same reason people crank their home AC to 60 degrees when it's 95 outside, the system just chokes and breaks instead of working better. There's this whole pattern where more input doesn't mean better output, whether it's solar panels, your car's gas pedal, or even how long you study for a test. Sometimes the fastest way is slowing down and letting the thing do what it was built to do.