The party’s over. We had a good run – one with a lifetime guarantee against chipping, cracking, breaking, or peeling. Tupperware has filed for bankruptcy.*
I wish I could give a 21-bowl burp salute to Earl Tupper, the chemist who in 1946 brought us the polyethylene bowls that would change the way people stored and served food, and the man who taught us to burp the air out of our Tupperware bowls to seal in freshness. Separate honors should go to Brownie Wise, who created the Tupperware home party.
“What is a home party?” the young person asked.
It’s a form of direct sales that took place in the second part of the 20th century which consisted of a dealer (not drug dealer) of particular merchandise who would bring their wares into a home for demonstrations. The dealer would arrive at the home of a hostess (in my four years as a Tupperware dealer I only had one male host a party for me). The hostess would invite friends, neighbors, and workmates. I’d play games with them, have giveaways, demonstrate our products, and sell plastic containers.
When I was a young mom, I attended many different home parties. There were Longaberger baskets, which Bob discouraged me from because they were super pricey. Mary Kay was popular. There was Princess House, which sold crystal. Having a family of four young kids didn’t exactly draw me to those parties, but I was always drawn to Tupperware. It fit my lifestyle.
At one point in the late 1980s, I was trying to figure out how I could augment our family budget without going back to work. I loved being a stay-at-home mom, so when I was at a Tupperware party and the dealer talked to us about possibly doing this ourselves on our own schedule, I was intrigued.
I talked to Bob, and we decided to give it a go. I say “we” because it would require me being gone at night to do maybe two parties a week after he got home from work. We would do a tag-team thing and see how it worked out. Our four kids ranged from one to nine years old.
It was more successful than I could have imagined and suddenly I had more parties than I truly wanted, but we looked at it as God’s provision for helping us knock out our debt. It was work, but it was fun, too. I loved playing games with the guests at the parties so they could win the prized kitchen gadgets. Demonstrating the Tupperware products was second nature as I was constantly in the kitchen at that time of life.
The practical luncheon plates, cereal bowls, and bell tumblers came in four different colors. This was perfect for our family as I assigned each child their own color, thereby making it easy to see who had not cleared their dishes. My daughter was assigned pink, which she hated, but she was the only girl and using a pink plate was her cross to bear. Plus, it made a fun story at parties. I sold a lot of plates.
Me demonstrating a colander at an outdoor party circa 1990.
Tupperware introduced a microwave cooking product line – Tupperwave. I taught microwave cooking classes at some of my parties. The irony of a person who only had a microwave for a year or two and mainly used it to reheat or employ its easy-to-use timer is not lost on me. I learned along the way.
Soon I was approached to manage my own team, which I did not want to do. It required more time away from the family in the way of team meetings. Tupperware franchise owners had goals to meet, so I was granted manager status without having to attend those extra things. I’m sure that didn’t make me popular at the time, but it did afford me the opportunity to qualify for the Tupperware minivan. I was hitting my stride.
My biggest week of sales was over $3000 dollars. That was in the late 1980s. The delivery method started with the dealer going to the dealership and picking up all that Tupperware, which was thrown in large boxes to be sorted. I barely could fit them in my car. Before I could do inventory and pack out individual orders, I came down with the flu and was in bed with a high fever. Poor Bob had to pack all the orders. We were a team.
Late 1980’s me at a national Tupperware convention in Orlando.
As the saying goes, Tupperware has been very good to me. I’ll bet if you look in your cupboard, you’ll find some well-used pieces, too. Most of mine are over thirty years old and still going strong. We particularly loved the gadgets. When I found my Tupperware funnel in the garage being used for oil replacement, I was glad I was a dealer and could replace the coveted item. Bob was glad, too. Now, if I can find out what he did with my one-cup dry measure. I know it’s out there somewhere!
Tupperware freezer mates keep 1:25 lbs. of ground beef frozen. I don’t know what I’d do without these.
Recently I was posting on Nextdoor, and I was contacted by a woman who asked, “Do you remember me? I was one of your dealers while I was in college?” I did remember her. Now she is a grandmother. That was sobering!
We all get older if God allows. We change. We don’t look or function the same way we did decades ago. Sometimes we burp out loud or smell like Listerine and Icy Hot. Sometimes we get icky sticky like a vintage Tupperware bowl. There is no amount of baking soda paste that can get rid of that. If that’s combined with that funky old-Tupperware smell, against which there is no guarantee, it gets chucked into the garbage.
Like me, Tupperware lives on, even if at some point that lifetime guarantee cannot be claimed. (My lifetime guarantee is Jesus, so I’m good.) We still have function even if our fashion has changed. And if we get to smelling funky or feeling sticky, like we’ve been out cleaning debris from a hurricane, we can take a shower and start again the next day.
*This doesn’t mean Tupperware is completely gone. As recently as this week I have contacted them to have a cracked piece replaced. I figure it might not pay to wait. There is also a report of Tupperware potentially being bought.
Life on the Lighter Side 