# 80 - Buy Some Tupperware; and #81 - Use Aforementioned Tupperware For Its Intended Purpose

Until recently I used to bring my lunch to work in disposable, plastic take-away containers from the local Indian or Thai joints which I saved and re-used.  I’d fill them up with lunch, seal the lid, wrap them in a tea towel with a rubber band around it, chuck it inside a plastic bag, tie a knot in the plastic bag and then put that inside another plastic bag with a rubber band around it and still sometimes my lunch would leak.

Some people at work have lunchboxes to be envious of, what with their matching cutlery and cooler bag.  They have Tupperware.  Once up on a time I snubbed Tupperware, dismissing it as for old hags and expensive.  However my frustration at the time-and-again failure of my tea towel / rubberband / plastic bag system was unnerving.  I needed better security for my curries, salads and soups.  What I really needed was a tight seal. 

One never need look too far for Tupperware.  Rest assured that in every large workplace, particularly the office environment there will be at least one Tupperware and one Avon distributor.  Guaranteed.  Usually they are middle-aged and matronly.  You’ll never work with them directly and they won’t be anybody you know.  They’ll work on another floor somewhere and the phone number they’ve left on the bolognaise stained catalogue in the communal kitchen with its “no fairies live here, clean your own dishes.  THIS MEANS YOU!” signs plastered above the sink, is eventually answered by someone who has never heard of Kym.  Or Joan or Dianne or whoever is selling the Tupperware in question. 

That’s why ebay was invented.  For all those unanswered phone calls, all those people unhappy with the mediocre excuse for rudeness palmed off as ‘customer service’ and all those people trying to sell their unwanted stuff.  Stuff they bought with good intentions of actually using but discovered it wasn’t quite what they thought, they didn’t read the fine print or the novelty wore off after one or two uses and their New Year’s resolution faded.

Tupperware has evolved.  

I pored over catalogues and I searched the Tupperware website.  I awoke in the middle of the night and my first thought was of Tupperware.  I had a problem.  I had to decide.  What then to do when faced with a tough decision?  Ignore it of course and hope it goes away.


I wanted Tupperware, I needed it for the sake of my lunch.  At the same time I noticed my flimsy backpack starting to fail and it would just be my luck that on the way from the gym to the train station after an intensive workout, a sweaty bra would escape from my ageing backpack and fall to the footpath in the midst of peak hour foot traffic.  Perhaps a well intended sister would hand it back to me gently saying, 'I think this might be yours dear' in full view of a hundred other people waiting to cross the lights, all staring at me as I stuff the offending lingerie into my bag.

That's when I saw this:  Totally Active by Tupperware.  An everyday bowl, 2x serving cups, 2x shampoo / conditioner travel bottles, 1x 750mL water bottle, a microfibre towel (I thought microfibre was only for cheap trousers from Lowes and lens cleaning cloth) and a sports bag which, as it turns out is bigger - not smaller as is often the rule rather than the exception - than it appears in the picture. 

Although totally satisfied with the purchase and using it every day, whenever I think of Tupperware I always remember a photo in a gossip magazine featuring Tori Spelling of 1990s tv series Beverley Hills 90210 post-breast augmentation with the caption "put your hands in the air if your boobs are made of Tupperware".