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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

The other woman
I can't wish she were dead; she may be dying.
By Jane Underwood
[11/04/99]

Unpleasantly plump
American kids are too fat and their parents are too wimpy. No one wants heavy kids to feel a burden, but is pudgy healthy?
By Anneli Rufus
[11/03/99]

Meet the Screamers
My kids are so loud they go to group speech therapy.
By Jennifer Moses
[11/02/99]

My grandparents were pioneers in the battle for visitation rights
To me, they were dependable, a security blanket I would never lose.
By Damien Cave
[11/01/99]

Eager saints and sweet-toothed sinners
The blessed Halloween of my youth
By Kate Convissor
[10/29/99]

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The answer was ostensibly comforting. I was going because this particular Tupperware party was being given by a locally renowned punk-turned-folk singer. An L.A. story if there ever was one, replete with kitsch-rich possibilities. Yet the punk element was not enough to completely erase all of my unappealing free associations with Tupperware: the drab '50s bungalows, the career housewives, the bad meatloaf and the bad, bad plastic juju.

Tupperware was always one of those seemingly innocuous things that was actually the dark antithesis of creativity and cultural resistance. In my house, my Louisiana-born mother used tin foil and empty Cool Whip bowls to pack away extra food or to assemble care packages for Thanksgiving dinner guests. Tupperware was too ordered, too well-thought out; it was capitulation of the first, and worst, order.

"I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" An invitation to enter the Mothers Who Think "Is This Marriage Doomed?" competition!

Compounding the psychic challenge was the fact that the party was to be held in a lovely, hilly section of town east of Hollywood that I'd visited twice in 37 years. You had to drive over a charming little bridge to get there. I vowed to duck in, breathe the air as little as possible, take notes and duck out.

The house is one of those wonderful, rambling art-deco bungalow places from the '20s that became de rigeur habitat for L.A. yuppies in the '90s. The predictability of the motif ended, however, with my arrival at its door. Phranc -- the self-proclaimed "all-American Jewish lesbian folk singer" -- hovered there, waiting to greet me.

She has a pleasant, slightly weatherbeaten face, a tidy crew cut and no jewelry. Her accessories comprise a spotless white shirt, a polka-dot bow tie and an apron with "Tupperware Lady" stitched across the bib. From her waist dangles a colorful assortment of Tupperware mini-goods mounted on key chains: a spatula, a pitcher, a grater. Phranc's face is slightly flushed; the house is pretty full and this is only her second party. She smiles and encourages me toward the snack table, and I find her hospitality touching and disarming -- perhaps she isn't the only one feeling a bit displaced.

"I've always wanted to sell things, but I never have until now," she confides later. "I thought about advertising first, but you know, you have to have at least one degree, and I dropped out of high school. I had to figure out something else."

That something else was Tupperware, a product Phranc says she was born to sell because she grew up with it and deeply believes in it. She has a Tupperware mini-bowl handed down to her by her mother that functions now as a kind of inspirational touchstone.

"I'm very old-fashioned, an Ozzie and Harriet kind of girl," Phranc says sincerely. "I mean, look at my hair!"

And how do people react when she tells them she's a Jewish-lesbian-folk-punk-rock singer who also happens to be a Tupperware lady?

"The first thing people do is laugh and laugh," she says. "And then they say, 'I need to order something.'"

Lunch is an acute childhood sense memory: toothpicked sandwiches, Fritos, frosted animal cookies, Jell-O mold. I am feeling much better about being vacuously American; it feels not so much like a capitulation as it does a very necessary indulgence of social imagination, a piffle of a dream that serves to more firmly bind the grit and integrity of real life. The Tupperware display out on the sun-dappled deck, all bright blues and greens and raspberries, is such a vision.

Phranc straps on a guitar and opens the proceedings with a heartfelt ditty called "Tupperware Lady" (soon to be released as single by Phranc on her own label, Phancy Records. Her voice is sweet, reminiscent of Joan Baez, decidedly more folk than punk, and the group gathered outside -- parents, children and singles alike -- sways and nearly breaks into song. The Tupperware Lady then gets down to business, holding aloft and exhorting the wonders of such select items as covered ice trays, stainless steel ice cream scoops and the pièce de résistance, salad spinner bowls that double -- no, triple -- as colanders and strainers.

I am caught up in this simple magic, in the chorus of oohs and aahs, and my earlier doubt evaporates like morning haze. Phranc's sprightly delivery has just the right blend of sly humor, showmanship and old-fashioned sales patter: "I love Tupperware because it's fun, flexible, and ... it supports me!" she declares, placing a bowl on the deck and standing on top of it in her black lug-soled boots, to a burst of applause.

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