Sunday, December 13, 2015

Tick Tock

When I was a new-ish mother, I attended a Tupperware party.  This is before I caught on to the whole thing, women trying to make parties out of guilt and plastic.  If anyone needs plastic shit, they go to Target.  They don't go to a party.  We all know that now, but I was still figuring it out, trying to fit in with the other moms, and woo-hoo, I got invited to a party!

The first thing we did was to go around the room and say what our favorite piece of tupperware was.  I didn't listen to the other answers because I was busy trying not to panic.  Favorite tupperware?  Really?  Is that a thing?  I don't even have a favorite color or movie.  (I did have a favorite Monkey, though:  Peter.)  

When it came to me, I made something up. I said I really liked these plastic salt and pepper shakers that we took on picnics when I was a kid.  They were white towers shaped like the space needle and embossed with a gold "S" and "P" that flaked off over the years.  I really didn't like them at all, but I did like picnics, so I felt like my answer was true-ish.

We progressed around the circle, each person recounting their favorite juice pitcher bowl with a snap-on lid, until we got to one woman who said, "I don't have a favorite piece of tupperware."  And I immediately thought GRRRR!  WHY DIDN'T I SAY THAT? 

So, this brings me to my point.  I think.

I asked Ms. Jennio three random questions in order to plan her trip, because she's my second customer for the Fake Travel Agency, and I've been a little awestruck by one of her answers:   

What is your greatest extravagance?
Time. I spend time on people and interests like there's no limit to it. But - eek, Betsy, there IS. Time is runneth-ing away from me. And from everyone.

I've just been thinking about that for days now.  It was just such a surprising and lovely answer that I haven't even been able to do or think about much else.  Except for make a dumb zoetrope with the Patterson Video that didn't really turn out.  (Zoetropes are best viewed FAST, and Bigfoot, of course, moves slowly.  Possibly due to the big feet.)  

I looked into how various famous people answered that question (because it's from Vanity Fair's version of the Proust Questionnaire.) PS, I have learned how to pronounce Proust.)
Arthur Miller:  New York restaurants
Walter Matthau:  sweaters
Jack Lemon: cars
Dustin Hoffman:  disposable glasses
Joan Fontaine: a car just for her dogs

I can't even wrap this up in an interesting way.  Time.  Can you believe it?  Greatest extravagence = time.  I so wish I had thought of that.  It might be my New Year's resolution extravagence.








8 comments:

  1. Oh! I forgot! I went to a Tupperware party once and almost everyone there was a follower of that boy guru that people used to be into. Guru Mahahraji? Whatever. Anyway, the night of the Tupperware party the Guru's wife was in labor with one of their holy children and that's almost all anyone spoke about. That was interesting.

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  2. On our way home from WUUC this morning, my C and I were discussing which we'd rather have-- all the money in the world, or all the time in the world. It seems pretty obvious to me that no one person should have all the money in the world, so that was an easy one for me. What pleased about was that after delving into the details of the question, C came around to agreeing that time was better than money. Good kid.

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  3. Back in the days of bell bottoms I had a button (buttons with words were a deal then)that said, "Marcel Proust is a Yenta".

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  4. :), Betsy.

    And clearly Jennio has not got any money or she would have had named some nice, normal extravagances ...

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  5. Monkee: Mike Nesmith. Tupperware: the white cup with the chewed plastic edge that I insisted on using and got into fights over while camping with family as a child. There. Glad that's sorted. Time? I must have lots of it because I seem to waste a lot of it...if I could save time in a Tupperware bottle...

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  6. I'd like to go to Bucharest please. I'm not even sure where it is but it sounds all Eastern Europe-y so there's a lot of cabbage and potato in the food and everyone wears several coats, all at once. Or maybe that's Russia. I get confused.

    Alternatively, I'd like to go to Yellow Knife. Why, you ask? Because who wouldn't want to go to someplace as cool sounding as Yellow Knife? It's probably quonset huts, sled dogs and mukluks and dark as shit all winter. See what I mean? COOL.

    PS Merry Xmas and all that, honey bunch.

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  7. I'd like to go to Bucharest please. I'm not even sure where it is but it sounds all Eastern Europe-y so there's a lot of cabbage and potato in the food and everyone wears several coats, all at once. Or maybe that's Russia. I get confused.

    Alternatively, I'd like to go to Yellow Knife. Why, you ask? Because who wouldn't want to go to someplace as cool sounding as Yellow Knife? It's probably quonset huts, sled dogs and mukluks and dark as shit all winter. See what I mean? COOL.

    PS Merry Xmas and all that, honey bunch.

    ReplyDelete

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