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The aristocracy of plastic
08/12/2006 09:22 - (SA)
Colleen Figg
I'm not much of a fan of the female of the species. Despite my urge to go and live in a hippy commune and engage in free love and the making of my own bread, it's the thought of being surrounded by so many women that puts me straight off this idea. I've never been one to get into all this women bonding nonsense, attending blasted stork parties and kitchen teas and the like.
On the odd occasion that I have been dragged along to such events I've felt like a fish out of water. When I attended my own stork parties I felt equally awkward, because there are only so many ways of showing appreciation for presents. Eventually you run out of superlatives: "Oh, this is marvellous, just what I need, thank you...". "This is fantastic, most useful, ta...". "Jolly handy, we can never get enough of these, thanks ever so much".
Don't even get me started on Tupperware (TM) parties; that dreaded scourge of the eighties and nineties. Do they still have them on the planet, I wonder? Surely they must, appalling as they were.
There was something very off-putting to me about sitting around in the company of well-dressed and coiffed women whose sole purpose in life, seemingly, was to find exactly the right airtight dishwasher and microwave-proof container in which to store the food they had slavishly cooked for their men!
I mean what the devil was that all about? You got square ones, round ones, airtight ones and red ones. You got yellow ones to match your sweet kitchen decor, and white ones to match your deep freeze.
Tupperware (TM) containers could survive in sub-zero temperatures for months on end and only needed you to give them the odd, passing word of encouragement as you rummaged in your deep freeze for those loaves you baked last month. Similarly, they could brave the mysterious heat of microwaves, and would never buckle, bend or crack.
There were stacked cake containers and containers that had divisions in them so you could store the meat and two veg. If the husband hadn't eaten as he was out on the town with his mates all night long: "never mind", the little lady would sweetly trill. "We've got... Tupperware (TM)!" (Cue brass band sounds in the background).
It's impossible to contain oneself
The way women hung onto every word about these blasted containers got me on edge... they seemed to be enjoying themselves tremendously, partaking in some arcane and unnatural ritual involving plastic that I could never make out or understand.
Somehow any other kind of plastic container could only ever aspire to be the poor relation of Tupperware (TM), that aristocracy of plastic! In the same way as platinum is now the new gold, so Tupperware (TM) became the eighties must-have. A woman with a comprehensive collection was to be admired, envied and emulated.
Once the new millennium rolled around the extremely odd sexy lingerie party with sex toys became the new Tupperware (TM). Women were no longer required to sit around ooh-ing and aah-ing at mere plastic and all the wonders contained therein. They were now permitted to get jiggy with sexy male strippers demonstrating alarming-looking sex toys (come, come, mind out of the gutter!) while chomping on edible condoms and downing shots of tequila. My, how times have changed!
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