Jilda prepares dinner every day without fail. She often cooks breakfast and lunch too, but dinner is the biggie.
We rarely waste food. At any given time there are stacks of containers inside our refrigerator. Every day or so, our dinner is a combination of leftovers. This approach a great way for a family of two to dine, but there is one hitch – Tupperware lids. They tend to disappear.
I have a theory: I believe that Tupperware lids somehow team up with vagrant socks because they disappear too.
Since Jilda cooks each day, it is my job to clean up afterward. If we have leftovers, I match the dirty bowls and lids before placing them into the dishwasher. One would think that when the dishwasher clicked off, all the matching pieces would be there ready for storage. But later when I look for matching items, they are gone. I am not sure what happens to them. Maybe some kind of time shift?
Often when I open the container door in the cabinet, a dozen or so bowls and lids launch out onto the floor. No matter how carefully I stack each piece when putting them away, they clatter onto the floor every time I open the cabinet. It is almost as if they are spring loaded like a Jack-in-the-Box waiting for the right moment to leap out.
That is frustrating, but what is worse is that I still cannot match bowls with the wayward lids – even with them in front of me on the floor.
A while back, I made a management decision. Tossing all the plastic containers into the garbage, I drove to Walmart. When I came out, I had a buggy full of new containers. In less than a month, the cabinet was a mess. Either the bowls grew, or the lids shrank because none of them matched.
I came up with the idea that I thought was a winner. I fantasized about patents and fat royalty checks. The new invention would be containers fastened to each other with a short piece of bailing wire I was certain QVC would be calling to market them on that station. But Jilda nixed that idea before I could fetch my cordless drill and bits.
I am curious to know if this is a common problem faced by people everywhere or some cruel trick Mother Nature plays on me.
Recently I posted my problem on my nightly blog, and it seems some people have a container storage system and they never lose lids. One woman commented saying she keeps her bowls and lids in two separate places. She puts a label on her bowl and a matching label on its cover. It is a place to start, but I think there are other factors at play here.
I know with all that’ i going on in the world today there more pressing issues like world peace and true happiness. But my wish is that I find a solution for my food storage problem.
Rick Watson is a columnist and author. His latest book Life Goes On is available on Amazon.com. You can contact him via email at rick@homefolkmedia.com.
