Any housewife who lived during
the 50’s or 60’s remembers Tupperware.
It was all the rage! It was
almost like a rite of passage for young marrieds to have a Tupperware party
which was hosted in their home with the hopes of getting a free pie carrier,
cake carrier, or bowls of different sizes that fit nice and neatly into each
other. Without the lids, of course. With the lids, you could stack them on top of
each other. Either way was a beautiful
addition to your kitchen cabinets which were probably sparse like mine. After a few years, they began to branch out
their line to Popsicle molds, tomato aspic molds, juice glasses, and all sorts
of other things. They were all pale
pastel colors. And they ALL had that
seal cover.
Now the idea was, that these
things would seal up themselves so tight that you could keep your food covered
in the refrigerator for days, maybe even weeks.
Heck, I saved some things for a few months although it did grow hair and
when I remembered what was in there and opened them up, had to jump back a few
feet to miss the atomic explosion of crud.
But, if you burped them like you were supposed to, they would be tight
as a drum and not SUPPOSED to let in air to contaminate the food. Therein lies the problem. Burping them correctly.
We had just moved into a brand
spanking new house so I decided it was time for me to brush up on my social
skills a little and give a Tupperware party.
After all, all the beautiful wedding gifts were too pretty to store
leftovers in and like I said, it was all the rage so I had to have me some Tupperware. I invited several of my friends over for an
afternoon party and spruced up my bare dining room with a card table complete
with a white cloth and maybe a vase of yard flowers. We sat around an ate petit fours, nuts, and
probably some of that green punch made from lime sherbet and ginger ale while
everybody looked at the beautiful display of Tupperware. Then came the time for the demonstration to
begin on how wonderful this stuff was and how it would hold gallons of water
without spilling a drop even if you dropped it on the floor. I got the largest bowl I could find, showed
everybody how to put the lid just right in the little grooves, and properly
burp the lid at the lip, so it would be sealed up tight as the ancient pyramids
and Dick’s hat band. Then I
dramatically held the bowl up high with my two hands, and let go.
After I mopped the water off the floor, and asked
just how many of my dearest friends couldn’t live without one of those mint
green bowls and got out my pad to write up orders, they just sort of started
chatting among themselves about how cute so and so’s baby was, how they just
loved the new preacher, and did you know so and so is PG? I’m not real sure how many of those little
green bowls I sold, but I don’t think I got more than a sippy cup for my reward
on the day’s take. I know I didn’t sell
a pie saver or cake carrier.
Eventually, I collected, by going
to somebody else’s party, enough of those bowls to stack three of them up and they looked nice with my collection of Cool Whip containers. I lost two of
the lids during one of our moves. After
the Tupperware party rage, came make up parties, art parties, jewelry parties, fashion
parties, lingerie and on down the list.
Can you imagine what kind of mess I could have gotten myself into with
some of them? So, I mostly stuck with
the bridge parties after that. You can’t
do too much damage with a deck of cards.
