Preface: (Otherwise known as saving face)
I had the most amazing weekend. On multiple occasions over the course of the last three days I floated out above myself just for a moment and took in my “job” and felt so blessed to be a part of something that helps people rewrite the direction of their lives from a place inside. I saw eyes full of pain become the shining eyes of hope, I watched people come alive, I saw some feel for the first time that they belonged. Not just with other people, but to themselves. And if that gets to be “work” I am so grateful I am a part of that tribe (www.cre8.com.au).
We got home at 1.30am after a 5 hour drive home (thank you my talented buddy who drove, and my lovely friend whose car ate up the road while she got to sleep in the back), and even though I love my job, getting home after 4 days away is another kind of heaven. My guy was really, totally fast asleep in the way only he can, but I managed to worm my way in to a full body cuddle and get some sleep too.
I think I’m telling you all of the above so you won’t judge me for what comes next. I hope you’re not disappointed (or surprised) in how frivolous Betty can be…
I woke at 6.30am because my guys’ girls were here this weekend, and were heading back to their other home and school. Oh, those beautiful 3 hugged me and told me how much they missed me on the weekend and in thirty minutes we managed to speak 3000 words, eat breakfast, get their hair done and get them in the car to head off. And then it happened….
The girls had a cook-off on the weekend, and made fudge and caramel slice and had packed a heap of it into one of my super Rock n Serve (now called Heat n Eat) Tupperware containers (sorry if this is trade-marked but this is only a good story for Tupperware) to send back to their other home. To their Mum (who used to be a Tupperware distributor and I have no doubt knows the value of the container (RRP $39.95), is not really my friend (although we are amicable) and lives 350km away and I would never get a chance to go through her cupboard while I was at her house for a party to check if she still had it!). I had to pull the biggest SWIFTY ever, go find a cheap-ass Decor container (sorry Decor the story isn’t so good for you) that I think my Mum left here a couple of weeks ago, and transfer the fudge all the while making a big song and dance about not wanting them to be worried about returning it, and they could just keep the other one, and all would be sweet.
And the whole time I was thinking “what is your story????” It’s some plastic (yes, it stores, freezes and heats really well but it’s just a freakin’ container!) and it may or may not come back, and you just spent all weekend trusting that life has this way of working, and you can’t send the fudge away in the Tupperware? Nope.
I’m not sorry though. I know the suspicion of thinking someone has taken your Illusion salad bowl (even though there were only two colours, and the blue was the most popular, and everyone brought one), and I’ve known really good friends to fall out over this. I know the annoyance I feel with my girls’ Dad when the Tupperware lunchbox doesn’t come home from school with them from his house because they had a lunch order. And so, in an effort not to create another opportunity for annoyance and frustration, I did the swifty container swap.
So if it’s any help, here’s my shortlist of how to know if you’re a Tupperware Nazi:
- You label both the lid and the bottom of each container before you take them out of the house
- You hassle your guy for 3 weeks until he brings home the one he left in the work fridge (I trust that most men don’t know the value of that stuff, because if they did they wouldn’t EVER let us buy it, but the women in the office and HR….well you just never know)
- You won’t send it to anyone’s house who isn’t your Mum or your sister or someone you see at least once a week and can remind them to return it (and if they don’t you can go through their cupboard sometime)
- You’ve had a suspicion that one of your friends has your container but they’re denying it. You feel a strange tension inside about this.
- Sometimes you use something other than Tupperware when you go out, so you don’t accidently leave it somewhere and get tense about that.
- You would never send Tupperware to the house of an ex-partner
- You have had to have a conversation with your au pair about appropriate container usage for number 6 above.
I’m not sure what you can do about this, once you know you are guilty of having the ISSUE of tight-ass behaviour with Tupperware. This is not a support group for people who have that problem. But I guess if you’ve identified it, you can rest easy that at least one other person in the world (ME) can support you through the loss of your favourite salad bowl. Oh, and don’t EVER leave your Tupperware at my house without a name label. I can’t promise I won’t keep it.
OK, I have a confession to make. You made me some zucchini slice 17 years ago when Lily was born and gave it to me in a Tupperware container (I think it was like a poo yellow colour with a corrugated lid). I meant to give it back before you left to move back home but never did. I then baked something for a friend a few years later and transported it to her in said container. Which she did not return. I had some serious guilt about that for some years, and was really hoping that you wouldn’t remember when you saw me again all these years later! Of course, you could look it this way … Pay it forward with Tupperware! x
By your criteria, I am definitely a Tupperware Nazi, and would probably come close to being a Decore one as well. Most of the food I give to people would be in a Peter’s vanilla ice cream container. How bad does that make me????
We have your big Decor soup container here!! Xxx
Don’t leave the country!!
I wish I was instead I have my tupperware scattered from workplace to house and have a mixture of different colours in my cupboard which means Ive taken from people whom have been to numerous parties and hope to one day have one of every colour tupperware container, dont give it to me or you’ll never see it!!!