I've always been able to make my way around the kitchen - cooking about half of the meals we ate at home over our 16 year marriage. I was the only one who could make a pound cake - a recipe passed on by my mother, her mother and my great-grandmother. It's all in the mixing. I also made a killer bean dip that I could only eat when Lisa wasn't home. She said it looked like...well, she said it wasn't appetizing to her. It was clear that was a meal to be enjoyed without her.
What I had never encountered at our house was Tupperware. One of many things my wife handled without my knowing or appreciating.
We have a corner cabinet that glides in a circle and in it we keep our plastic booty. We have 28 square bottoms and 23 square tops. Few of the tops fit the bottoms. It's the same with the rectangles and circles.
One day my dad was in town and got frustrated with the Tupperware corner. He mustered enough energy to sit his 73-year-old inflexible self on the floor and begin the process of mating the bottoms with the tops. He restacked and found a large container to hold the tops. My mother helped him off the floor. When they returned in two weeks, havoc had reigned once more. And, he tossed one of my favorite pieces, a soup bowl sized purple number that was perfect for a nice helping of leftover bean dip. I'd had that piece since right after college. Boy do I miss her.
The worst part of the corner Tupperware cabinet is that the parts fall off the rotating door as you open it. Then the cabinet gets stuck mid way around. It's convenient to have the cabinet door permanently open if you're emptying the dishwasher, but it just doesn't look very nice to leave it that way.
About once a week, I belly up on the kitchen floor and begin digging under the cabinet door. Invariably I lose the top layer of skin off of my hand in the process of dragging out the lid that fell and that doesn't fit any damn bottom within a sixty mile radius of my kitchen. One time this year I drew blood trying to rescue a Gladware throw away, one of 8,976 we received over Lisa's illness when meals were being provided by our friends four days each week.
If it is a Gladware throw away, I wonder why I don't throw it away? I sort of have this bizarre attachment to these containers. It's not like they're expensive, you can by a package of six from Target for $3.
I'm going to go throw one away. Seriously, I can do this.
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