contain me

i have recently fell in love with tupperware. mmm, i love the colours - the jewel tones, the oranges, the lime greens and fuschias, mmm, the way it makes my life so so so much bettah.

An organized life is a better one, no? I never ever thought i would succumb, never thought i would fall this low. When i was 19, fresh after i broke up with a long-time boyfriend, i swore up and down that i would never ever EVER be the suburban housewife collecting place-settings, going to tupperware parties... the casseroles, the endless detailing of little nothings,the gossip, the fretting over chaos, the upgrading of tiles, the matching sets.
the smoothing down of the apron.

ok. so i have cooked way too many casseroles in my day, i have upgraded tiles (well, from '50s pink, which i regret replacing in a way...) but i have no placesettings, and i still savour what can come of chaos, yet, tupperware? have i gone over the edge?

but i am smitten. i truly am, with the most stereotypical housewife marker of them all.

it might have something to do with the fact that i am no longer taking courses. This past December I finished all the requirements for my undergrad, finally. Grad pending June '09. From having one's time filled with deadlines, research, the reading of primary texts, the schleping from class to class to, well, to nearly nothing is quite an adjustment.

I had a void of time to fill, a lack of projects, a lack of focus and what was staring me in the face, all day long, everyday? the sagging, sad insides of my kitchen cupboards, whenever i reached for that snack, those many snacks i'm afraid...

when i was busy in school, i didn't really notice how i became the poster-child for a tupperware make-over.

my friends took me by the hand, my uber organized, detail-oriented friends who feel a real, palpable guilt when failing in the household department (what does that feel like?) we entered the tupperware lady's room dedicated to perfect, lovely shelves stacked full of glossy, glorious tupperware.

i felt my first twang.

i am trained to be a critical theorist, to critique the signs, the signifiers of imbedded cultural value, the seduction of marketing, the fetishizing of objects. but i could not penetrate this one. i wanted to curl up into a ball and tuck myself inside a servalier bowl set, i wanted to nestle my cheek up against the modular mates , i wanted to caress the silky crystalwave divided dish.

When Annette Tupper Ware took us upstairs to see her tupperware lined cupboards i could have had a stroke. I was swooning. i think even Annette herself thought i had gone too far.

two weeks later i found myself in my kitchen with a very large box full of moulded plastic. you might think this is the moment that the bubble burst. um, no.

I lovingly unwrapped every piece, filled them with oatmeal and flour and pasta and rice and cereal and juice and spices and stacked the servalier bowls into a shining, sparkly jewel of a plastic pyramid. Every morning for at least a week i opened and shut and opened my cupboards, relishing in the tidyness, the containment, the lack of leaking spices, the winking array of smartly stacked colour. i ordered a motely crew of colour, no matching sets - my only deliberate, calculated, dissent in my plastic compliance.

true, things are better organized. true, my oatmeal and rice won't risk getting those mealy bugs any more. true, the cumin is contained and won't leak over the stove whenever i open the cupboard. true, my baking pull-out drawer is shwank. but i can't help but wonder what got over me and why i am still in love, why i had coffee with Annette Tupper Ware last week, why the servalier bowls are still in pyramid form on the counter. Maybe i better go back to school, get that masters, or go to work. maybe i just need some structure, given to me, solid with a lifetime warranty.

Boundaries are cozy, parameters hold you close, and the meal solutions-to-go-pack is on sale come September. Annette? sorry for that time i put my head on your shoulder. but i have to say, you are the queen.