Tupperware Beware!

I don't mean to be an alarmist, but I really think that Tupperware is out to get me. I've been suspicious of it for some time, but I feel that its true intentions have only become more clear now that we've moved into our new apartment.

Let me break it down for you. The other night, I had just put away the clean dishes and was rinsing the dirties to start another load when I heard a small thunder-thud in the cabinet above my head. Something moved in -- you guessed it -- the very same Tupperware cabinet which you see in the photo above. Having been in the kitchen to hear this container-shift I had two choices: (1) pretend I didn't hear anything and hope that my husband would be the next sucker to open the cupboard, or (2) take one for the team and set things right before someone (else) got hurt.

I would never confess here that I finished rinsing the dishes, closed the dishwasher, dried my hands, and left the kitchen without another glance at the Tupperware lair. That is a tale for whispered confidences with perfect strangers and anonymous late-night phone calls. Instead, I'm here to tell the story of what really happened when I opened that cupboard above the sink.

Things fell out. At my head. With such orchestrated precision that I was unable to appropriately shield myself from the plastic barrage. Or rather, I made the mistake of trying to catch everything before it hit the floor.

Here is what transpired exactly. Initially, well . . . nothing. When I cautiously opened the first of the cupboard doors, everything appeared at least temporarily unshiftable. Maybe it was nothing after all, I thought. Some lids rustling against each other, a few bowls nestling more deeply into larger bowls, nothing to worry about here. This apparent lack of impending doom, of course, fed my false sense of security, setting me up for "the surprise behind door number two."

I recall now that I quite carelessly opened the other cupboard door -- a fool's move, I admit -- and was immediately greeted by an airborne Tupperware bowl, sans lid. I caught it in my left hand, simultaneously glimpsing a larger square container plummeting towards the floor. I dove for it, successfully snatching it out of the air. I felt triumphant. The worst was over. All was quiet, and a container in each hand, I stood up straight, looking into the cupboard to see where exactly I could re-stow these two errant food-holders.

And here is where the aforementioned "orchestrated precision" comes in: with a few miniscule shifts into the gaps once filled by the two containers I held in my hands, the entire top layer of the cabinet tumbled forward en masse upon me. With both hands full (as the Tupperware King knew they would be), there was nothing I could do to catch any of the tumbling tops and bottoms, and so I instinctively did what no sane person would do in the same circumstance. I stuck my face up to the cabinet and stopped a falling bowl with the bridge of my nose. It was my bad luck that it happened to be the only metal one in the collection.

I have never been punched in the face, but if it's anything like having a metal bowl rim smashed into the bridge of your nose, I hope I never am able to check that treat off my "Things To Not Do" list. My eyes started watering and lost focus, I felt dizzy, and I was convinced that my nose was broken or was at least going to start gushing blood at any second.

When my nose showed no outward reaction to this severe trauma, I ran into the bathroom and rushed to the mirror, convinced I would find a purple-yellow-green bruise spreading quickly across my face like a vivid sunset. Nope. No bruise, no scratch, no cut, no protruding bones. Just a whole lot of nothing. It still hurt, certainly, but you don't get much sympathy for something no one can see. I didn't even bother to mention it to my husband at this point. What was he going to say other than, "Well, at least you were unscathed. And the Tupperware can be re-washed. No harm done."

The bridge of my nose hurt for the next week, not that anyone would know it to look at me and my perfectly normal-pink sniffer. And that was the insult to injury which I'm sure will keep the Tupperware in fits of giggles for a long time to come.

The moral of this story: Keep your Tupperware in a low cabinet. It's not too good at jumping up. But wear steel-toed shoes and shin-guards just in case.