the most important tupperware – the pieces that i will likely save forever and ever – are the sippy cups with lids and the brightly colored small everything-in-a-bowl-bowls that The Girl and The Boy used when they were little.  years into college, The Girl came home, went directly to the cabinet, took out a sippy cup, went to a drawer below, pulled out a lid, poured some juice into the cup, attached the lid and announced, laughing, “i don’t want to adult anymore.”  if it were that easy to avoid, i suspect all of us would be using sippy cups fairly often.  but oh…those sippy cups and those bowls.  a trove of little-kid-memories, a rainbow of cups and bowls waiting for maybe the next generation.

my sister sold tupperware.  well, at least that’s what i remember.  she also sold mary kay products, so i wonder if i am getting confused.  nevertheless, she has more tupperware than anyone i know, so i suspect i am right about her long-ago-sales-effort.  as a result, i have tupperware that spans the years…clearish-white picnic-size salt and pepper shakers, an iceberg lettuce keeper, orange canisters in the closet, tools that zip the peel off oranges, section and core an apple, cut around the pith of a grapefruit, make gravy-making easier, things with lids that store other things.   my hands can still feel working the push-button on the top of the decanter my sweet momma always used for iced tea.

this room – at the school days antique mall – appealed to both of us.  all the tupperware was organized by color.  it made it interesting and easy to be around.  it felt less haphazard and more intentional.  it made us want to look at it.  there is another booth that we both cannot even think about entering; it is a chaos of piled articles, none of which stand out from the mess.  the organization was something that, i’m quite sure, took some time, but it paid off.  the investment in effort to make it appealing, the deliberate intention to be ordered made this booth more worthy of time spent.  i appreciated that.  it wasn’t lost on me that this organizing philosophy of tupperware could apply to most anything.  taking one’s time, baby step by baby step, clean and organized and with a well-intentioned end goal in mind leads to an outcome far better than what any chaos could yield.  hmmm. where else could that apply…..

i’m thinking that anyone who has ever wanted vintage tupperware or needs to replace a piece of their own collection will find it in this place.  and, because of the neat, clean orderliness, they will purchase it, trusting the integrity of the piece in the sale.  it’s much harder to think about purchasing a piece from the piled mess in a far corner of another room in the building.  were i to want something specific to actually be able to use, i would not look for it there.

regardless, i have enough tupperware.  all i really need is those sippy cups and those plastic bowls.

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY