The Night of the Tupperware Creatures
Written by Fletcher “Butchwax” Ferguson
The invention of Tupperware is without question a fabulous invention for those of us who love leftovers. Us hard working slobs hold in high regard the Tupperware container as it has stretched our hard earned dollars a bit further than most of the other products designed for food preservation and has magically fed us on many a bachelor night to bout. Any fugal modern day cook of the house takes full advantage of Tupperware for that very reason. That reason alone justifies the need for Tupperware. However, the time leftovers save in preparation of subsequent meals when one is beat up from the day or because of daily situational constraints requiring a quick and tasty meal with that good old home cooked flavor are also strong supportive arguments for Tupperware’s ubiquitous use.
In general I love leftovers, depending of course on what is actually left over. Some things actually taste better the next day, others…..Ugh. As is the case of entrées such as chili and or pot roast versus three day old fruit salad. All of these delicacies get better with age, up to a point that is. Other food items such as left over frozen vegetables are not among the better tasting next day lunch items, as they generally lose their character after an overnight bivouac in the frig. Fresh steamed veggies tend to survive a while longer, deserve a second look but usually those treats never make it that far. Some things just don’t age as well as others encouraging total absorption.
I suppose now you are thinking, where is this story going? It is certainly not going to be about touting the benefits of using various food preservation concepts as they apply to the household economy. No, on the contrary, the story is about the habit of collecting leftovers until it is dangerously close to starting an epidemic. Twenty two cubic feet of refrigerator was way to much storage space for my wife to have access too. I’m not sure if it was because she was overly proud of what she prepared, wanted to maintain a museum for historical record, whether she viewed the act of leftover wasting as a potential sin if it was thrown out or if she just forgot she had leftovers all together. Regardless the reason, which may be one of the great unresolved mysteries of mankind, she saved leftovers in the frig (not the freezer), in Tupperware, forever. Even the most tiny of portions would be saved, mere tablespoons. Tidbits of something or other housed in Tupperware, displayed in the frig until I discovered what ever it was. Leftover food which clearly had metamorphic qualities. Food stuffs that had changed into something that could no longer be classified as food nor could possibly retain any of it’s previous nutritious elements all proudly existing in my Frigidaire X5000. It may have been by design as there was never any room for beer, that was for certain.
One fateful night after a long evening at work I stopped at a tavern for a cold one before I came home. The wife had long gone to bed so what she didn’t know would not be an issue. What I did not know, she had been preparing for such an eventuality for…… who knows how long. After more than one aluminum soldier fell to my vampire like assault, I staggered home in hopes of finding a dinner plate of what ever she had prepared that evening. As soon as I walked in the door I opened the frig. When I looked cross eyed into my top of the line frig, that I was still making payments on, I quickly discovered no plate was dished up for me. It was then incumbent on me to scourer the stacks of never ending Tupperware stores for something tasty.
Dozens upon dozens of Tupperware containers full of highly colorful food items were at my fingertips. At that point I was on a mission to fix my self a late Friday night feast of leftovers. Unfortunately, the very first container I opened had inside a portion of leftover mashed sweet potatoes that was now culturing a grayish white fuzzy mold that was beginning to take on a very unpleasant odor. I puked up the beer in the kitchen sink. Recovering soon there after, not wishing to dump the contents of the container down the garbage disposal waking every body up, I closed the lid and sat the container on the kitchen table. The next Tupperware encased treat was positively unrecognizable. It looked like a science project gone bad of perhaps a vegetable matter breaking down into crude oil. Further investigations resulted in discovery of other morbidly unique chemical reactions, possibly new life forms, some of which had no odor, others were in fact quite foul, gut retching. All protected from one another inside the patented seal tight containers.
After opening a dozen or more containers revealing the toxic and profane remnants of meals gone by, I started to chuckle. Shortly, the prodigy woke up and joined me in the kitchen. Still sleepy, my young son peered into the next vestibule of refrigerated botulism laden garbage only to let out in unison with me a profoundly expressed EEEEwwweeee! We preceded to laugh. More containers opened, more disgusting moldy creations and more resulting laughter. Soon the toddler was up, joining us in laughter and scientific observance, as more and more of Momma’s experiments were uncovered. Now we had an assembly line operation/ investigative talk show underway. We would carefully open a container, take a critical look, vocalize our individual reactions and conjecture as to what it used to be then assign a name to what it had become. Some of the containers held within it’s plastic walls coincidental works of art. Artwork that rivaled the masters i.e. Van Gough. The phrase “piece de la résistance” was never used.
The fun soon became a project as each of the respective revolting enigmas were processed. The boys took turns alternating between dumping out the contents in the disposal, rinsing out the container and placing it in the dishwasher. For safety sake, I insisted they wear rubber gloves which added to their fun and courageous efforts. This food storage habit of my wife was probably why I could never find any Tupperware in the cabinet. It was all in the frig. It is not at all clear how many biological entities we dispatched that night but one thing was for certain, I no longer had an appetite for leftovers……. Ever. We had however, experienced one of those memorable moments, a father son heartfelt bonding adventure at mother’s expense. The whole ordeal was incidentally later found to be highly reproachable to significant others. You had to be there.
When the blonde tornado awoke the next morning the frig was sanitized and spotless. As Bugs Bunny cartoons played across the television she found me asleep in the recliner with a passed out youngster on one side and a toddler on the other, a copy of Snow White in my lap. All the Tupperware had either been washed twice in the dishwasher with ample quantities of bleach, stored in the cupboard properly or completely removed from the house. She neither said anything or acted as if she even noticed. I didn’t dare bring it up.
For several weeks after “the night of the Tupperware creatures,” both boys begged to clean the frig out again as they where wanting to have more laughs with Dad. We didn’t, haven’t, and won’t.
The boys eventually drew colored pictures of the effort, from memory of course. I hung them on the frig. My wife did not get the satirical symbolism…… I don’t guess.
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