Buurrrrp.
Oh, excuse us, please. We don`t mean to be rude, but we really couldn`t help it. And to be perfectly honest, it seemed like the right thing to do.
We`re here in Kissimmee at Tupperware World Headquarters-home of the plastic bowls you once had to ”burp” and where ”seal” is a sacred word.
It is our pleasure to be outside the building perusing the soaring rainbow constructed of 64,000 Tupperware seals, and to be strolling the gardens with its ”Opportuni-trees.”
We are here to tell you the Tupperware tale-the story of the man who created it, the woman who loved it, the parties that sold it and the museum that shows it off.
We`ll start with us-three women, each from a different decade yet sharing a bond that is stronger than steel or any space-age metal.
It is plastic that unites us.
We sit in the lobby of the Tupperware World Headquarters, a building that looks more like a museum than a sanctuary for the Pick-a-Deli pickle holder.
Plastic palace
It is, in fact, a spectacular building sitting on 1,500 acres-once a cow pasture-that includes manicured gardens, lovingly planted and carefully tended, all for the glory and honor of the people who push this prized plastic.
Inside this modern-day Xanadu are Lawrie Platt and Shirley Stuller, part of the Tupperware Team, saturated with Tupperware spirit and filling us with Tupperware facts.
Stuff like:
The Tupperware Bell Tumbler is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. And Elizabeth Taylor once gave a Tupperware party aboard her yacht.
Then gradually-yet naturally-we start to digress. Someone tells a story about the couple who fought over Tupperware custody in their divorce. Then another tells of the woman who picks every home she buys based on the kitchen cabinets, which must accommodate her ample Tupperware collection.
And, for the piece de resistance, we tell of a friend who owns a clock made from Tupperware products. (The measuring spoons are the numbers; a Tupperware seal hides the mechanical junk. It is, in the owner`s own words,
”just about as ugly a thing as I`ve ever seen.”)
44 years and counting
The point is that Tupperware, which turns 45 next year, is now marching into middle age. It has been part of Americana for four decades and now is serving a third generation of users.
It is both ubiquitous and inescapable, not to mention that it has a funny name.
Chances are, you`ve got a piece of Tupperware in your home, maybe coddling your deviled eggs or keeping your lettuce crisp.
Chances are, if you`re 30 or older, you`ve been to a Tupperware party.
Or maybe given one yourself.
At World Headquarters, they call the plastic that`s permeated our nation an American icon. They say it`s an investment for a lifetime. And as if that isn`t enough, they even show it off in their own museum.
But if you please, don`t call this place the Tupperware Museum. Its proper name is the Museum of Historic Food Containers, and a fine collection it is. In one well-lighted room of World Headquarters we find delicate porcelain from China, fine Indian baskets and ceramic pieces dating back 6,000 years-all free for the looking.
A brief history
”A lot of people think we have old pieces of Tupperware on display and when they get here they`re disappointed,” says Stuller, who`s in charge of the collection.
In truth, only museum aficionados and Europeans-who have a respect for old stuff anyway-appear to appreciate the small display.
We watch as heads bob past the historic containers and go straight to the table that holds the cereal storers, the pastel tumblers, the cold-cut keeper and the 200 other pieces of Tupperware that you can buy from a dealer today.
We listen as one woman says this is her third trip just this season, that last year she came here twice and every time guests come to town, she brings them here for a look-see.
Like this place is the Met or something.
We listen to another who describes pieces passed down to her like heirlooms from her mother. Tupperware tumblers circa 1950. And we make our first mistake by asking if she uses them still, and she gives us a withering look as if we`d smashed her prized Lalique.
”Why, I couldn`t use those cups today,” she says. ”They`re too precious to me.”
Sealing their fate
We make our second mistake-not with the tourists but with the Tupperware Team-by violating Tupperware terminology. We call something a lid that`s a seal-and that`s a no-no.
Tupperware doesn`t have lids, it has seals.
Very special seals.
But instead of withering looks, we get stony silence, as if someone at a very large and very elegant dinner party did something unspeakably gross.
Like burped.
Suffice it to say that terminology is important here. It really is.
We also should mention that no longer must a bowl be ”burped” to let that last bit of air out so it`s truly airtight.
”Now they don`t burp, we say they whisper,” says Tupperware Team member Platt. ”It sounds better.”
In the beginning, the bowls did burp, they had seals, not lids, and a creator whose name really was Tupper-Earl Tupper, a New Hampshire tinkerer enthralled with plastic.
And there was a woman named Brownie Wise, a south Florida divorcee enthralled with people.
Wise is 76 and lives in Kissimmee. She is also perk personified and still works as a sales consultant.
Pure slag
Seems Earl Tupper took a black, rock-hard waste product called polyethylene slag and purified it. He found a way to mold it into containers and saw that it was good. It did not smell. It could take heat and it could take cold. It did not break when dropped; it bounced. Then he invented an airtight seal and his work was done.
The year was 1945.
A little later, Wise took the Tupperware bowls and tumblers and sold them to friends and neighbors who in turn started selling to their friends and neighbors.
Today at World Headquarters, they almost say Brownie Wise`s name in a whisper, like that of a saint.
It`s the remnants of her rah-rah spirit that cause sales manager Gaylin Olson to say: ”We do things today that people don`t understand.”
Like the rainbow of Tupperware lids inscribed with the name of every dealer in the whole wide world. Like the trophies, the rallies, the jubilees and the can-do chants.
The party`s over?
What has changed are the Tupperware products-there are bunches of them, including microwave dishes-and the Tupperware party. Big changes started in
`82 when, for the first time in 30 years, U.S. sales of Tupperware didn`t increase in double digits. In fact, they declined. Now the Tupperware party may be at the office or in the teacher`s lounge and it may not be a ”party” at all.
Wise doesn`t like the changes much. She thinks Tupperware has too many gadgets on the market and too few parties in the home.
”I was in my beauty shop the other day and there was this Tupperware that had been set out as a display. No one was there to demonstrate it and it was all a mess and in a jumble. They told me to walk straight ahead and try not to look at it.”
But that`s the present.
Here`s a final word about the past.
”I did come up with the burp,” Wise says. ”You can give me the credit or the blame or the damnation for it. I was struggling with that seal when finally I realized you had to burp it just like a baby.”
That`s right-Buurrrrp.
Now, excuse us again, but-gosh-it felt great. –
