I open up my custom cupboard doors two or three times a day to gaze upon that glorious ziggurat of plastic food storage containers, my cherished Popit! collection. Let’s disuss the mechanics before we wax philosophic. Popit!s range in size from spoonful of peas to two turkey legs snuggled up headsy footsy like a new pair of shoes.  Most are square. The key feature: each lid has four plastic hinges that snap down on the female half. Onomatopoeically speaking, Snap-Its might have been a better name choice, but who am I to quibble with genius? I can attest that the clumsy user can drop a Popit! from the approximate height of five feet and absolutely no liquid contents will spill onto the floor. Full disclosure: You should not, however, extrapolate the results of the aforementioned spontaneous experiement as justification for whipping one at your wisecracking husband; your leftovers won’t be compromised but he might (read: will) be all, “don’t hurl this…peach salsa at me, whah”.

How lame is it that I love my Popit!s with a passion once reserved for matte black peep-toe pumps? So lame, it’s awesome. As we get older our priorties shift and tastes change. It’s a phenomenon perfectly captured in that hilarious little bildungsmovie we like to call Old School. You know the moment in which Frank the Tank attempts to absent himself from taking a beer bong to the head by explaining that he has “a pretty nice little Saturday” planned for the morrow. It’s a gentle idyll, this time in our lives. We’re happily settled, yet self-aware. Home life is still newly wedded  bliss. We feather the nest with Target twigs and shiny lures from Pottery Barn. And we are content.

But really is there any more potent symbol of the banalities of domestic life than Tupperware, that gassy little Eisenhower-era invention that prompted clucking hen parties and fettered women to the kitchen all the while auguring their liberation? As much as I privately appreciate my precious Popit!s I am quite a ways from wanting to ogle them in the company of other women whilst sipping Chardonnay and contemplating a second sinful helping of spin dip. Are there jello molds flecked with fruit in my future? Will I one day drive a mini van and keep a used Kleenex stuffed in my sleeve, suppress my rage with Milano cookies and sublimate my sex drive with back to back episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air? Is this quaint hoarding of time-saving plastic a slippery slope to suburban despair? Maybe. Trouble is,  I can’t get too uptight about the ennui future leftovers might cause because my present is exciting in a way I never expected being an adult could be. I take comfort in the lucid order that Popit! represents and find peace in the pantry of my own convenient kitchen. It is such a pleasant surprise.

You may also like these stories:

No related posts.