Tupperware Story part II

And so the story of the long, classic chase continues- that of Tupperware army running after friends who are potential buyers. Finally after two years of living in the same apartment complex and miraculously avoiding the purchase of a plastic souvenir called Tupperware, I could not avoid the purchase anymore and so bought a little tiffin box with a carrier bag (this is equivalent to death by hanging but might as well shout some rude ‘down-with-yous’ plus the mandatory finger showing upfront and clear).

The entire transaction lasted 45 minutes and it was like an elaborate Chinese opera or something that might have been mistaken for the purchase of some hi-technology gadget that the customer needs hand-holding for while operating it.
She asked me if I wanted to go through the catalogue. I said to myself “damn it, these are just plastic boxes, just show me some and give me what I am looking for and be done with it”. But you do have to realise here that this is lifestyle product. On second thoughts this name is richly deserved for something that is just a tiffin box in a bag but manages to command a premium at 670 Rupees only. By the end of it I was bleeding hard and profusely.

I examined the tiffin boxes and as is wont with all shoppers, I tried opening and shutting the containers and they wouldn’t just shut properly. If I pressed one part of the lid down , the other part would open. She gently took the container out of my hand and remarked wisely “See that’s why you need a Tupperware consultant to guide you in your usage”. Damn, If after 15 years of marriage and running a functional household (operating one being ‘functional’) with two children, I can’t shut a plastic box properly, my husband may as well divorce me. Thank you Tupperware, you opened my eyes! Thank you Tupperware for highlighting my inadequacies, I will learn from it. And ( I wink here as I would at a friend) hey I am already an expert at opening and closing the containers.

But I digress here. Since I am unemployed now she also hinted at how I may start my very own Tuperware business by becoming an agent of change (forget Anna, Tupperware it is and always will be). “Over my dead body” By now I was positively screaming (in my mind of course) like a child who has his hands thrust up and in the front and is resisting and kicking and screaming at the parent who is holding a spoon-full of crocin, “I wont, I wont, I wont”.

She asked me how I store rice. I told her (in my mind of course because this is the cradle and coffin of all witty, acerbic, smart alec-y retorts and we are a polite well-raised and well- adjusted adults to indulge in such things) what she meant because, rice ‘storage’ conjured images of warehouses with mounds of wheat and mice running in and out of paradise. I stammered that I store rice in steel boxes and she jumped at my handicap and timid defence. Well why don’t you store it in Tupperware Terminator box that keeps rice safe for up to a year (and I told her in my mind again..how dumb of you to think otherwise, that I am not preparing for Noah’s Arc kind of Ship and that I need rice that lasts me for a month or two and that I go out and buy again). She told me a little story that would correct all my defects. Her brother had got her two boxes of blueberry cake mix from YOO ESS and while she opened one and stored the balance in a Tupperware environment-proof box, she just put away the unopened, sealed box in the kitchen. After two months, the sealed box was breached by worms while T-ware box was safe, its defences intact and the denizens inside safe from plundering.

“Amazing isn’t it”, she asked me excited that what she said was from the treasure of her own experience with the T-ware avatar and not some canned sales spiel.
“it really is”. I answered lamely.