Glad

GLAD containers and their other branded cousins, not to mention the off brand step-cousins,  have officially been put on my shit list.  In theory, they seem amazing.  They're the aught's answer to Tupperware, right?  And bonus! You don't have to go to some stupid home party where you eat hor d'oeuvres* made with crescent rolls and little smokies and chocolate chips and feel guilty if you walk out without having spent at least $50.  What's more, you can freeze them!  You can microwave them!  You can reuse them again and again! You can fill them with goodies at Christmas and give them away! It's two gifts in one!  You can lose them and it's OK!  

Yeah.  

See, this is where, again, we've got a bait-and-switch of serious proportions going on thanks to the mad men (and thanks to you, Ms. Passerby, for the term which I shall now shamelessly adopt).  

Because on the commercials and on the net and on foodie blogs, those containers look, and will thus always look,  like this:  

              

And you buy them thinking your food is going to be all pretty in your fridge or cupboard.  And because you have pretty food, you're certainly going to be motivated to keep these containers organized.  And an organized kitchen means an organized cook means you're really a chef and cooking like Emeril every night of the week.  And when you cook like Emeril every night of the week, then you can start entertaining regularly, meaning you are the Martha of your city and county.  And being the Martha of your city and county means you end up with a blog that everyone follows, raves about to their friends and makes you famous among 26 to 45 year-old mothers who run out en masse and buy your cookbook.**

You are the Alpha and the Omega.  Aphrodite.  A culinary Bruce Springsteen. 

In reality, however, and presumably after you've spent your monthly grocery allowance obtaining every possible shape and size of these these magical boxes that will make you cook like Emeril, you discover there is a dark side.  

Like tops that warp in the microwave, rendering them useless. Food that gets the containers all crusty and won't wash off.  Ever.  Spaghetti sauce that stains.  The dog's tendency to chew the rim off the one that had the (forgotten) pancake batter in it.  The dishwasher that can wreak havoc on three tops at once because they fell through the cracks during the washing cycle and landed on the heating element. The containers that get pushed into the corner of the backyard from feeding the dog the (forgotten) chicken dinner from 9 days ago.  Then it rains and gets all mud-soaked and who wants to use it now? 

So.  One by one, the tops and the bottoms get ruined or broken or destroyed or something.  But the ruinous events never occur simultaneously to the set.  Oh, no.  They slowly nickle and dime their way through your collection until you're left with a vast supply of ill-fitting pieces in which the teenager in your home will none-the-less pair together and try to pass off to you as properly contained leftovers.  Or, more likely, said teenager will just stick the leftovers in the fridge in the sub-par accamodations unbeknownst to you.  And then you will grab it 24 hours later, ignorant of the fact that the lid doesn't quite fit.  The cat will tear through the kitchen right in front of you at that exact moment, having been freaked by an errant noise from somewhere in the neighboring town, which will greatly startle you. Ergo: chicken noodle soup all over the floor.  


Naturally, being a slow learner, you buy more and the cycle repeats itself. 

As for staying organized?  

Behold my container cabinet:      ->

*Say you: You had to look up how to spell "hor d'oeuvres" didn't you?  

Say me:  Please.  I can't spell "sheriff" without a consult.  

**No. I don't own it.  I can cook as good as her, thankyouverymuch.