There are few places in the Australian home more challenging than the kitchen Tupperware cupboard. Opening that cupboard door carried the genuine risk of a full plastic avalanche, says cartoonist PAUL DORIN. 

Every Australian family has had a kitchen Tupperware cupboard and most probably still do.

A cupboard, usually above the fridge or next to the oven, packed tighter than peak-hour public transport with a colourful collection of containers gathered over decades.

Some were genuine Tupperware. Others were suspicious home-brand substitutes that entered the system through Christmas leftovers and never left.

Opening the cupboard became a test of skill and timing. You would slowly crack the door open, listening carefully for movement inside like a hostage negotiator. If one container shifted, the whole structure could collapse without warning.

Often, the one you wanted was hiding at the very back behind all the others, so you would end up pulling everything out. Or, if frustration was getting the better of you and you were really game, you would rip in and pull the container free, quietly letting the next person deal with the scrambled mess of Tupperware left behind.

Restacking the Tupperware cupboard required engineering skills, emotional resilience and the patience of a saint. Lids seemed to multiply, yet somehow the real mystery was always the missing lids.

Matching Tupperware lids disappeared with the same unexplained force responsible for single socks vanishing in the wash.

Despite owning dozens of containers, I remember struggling to ever find the correct lid. You would stand in the kitchen trying combinations like a contestant on a game show.

Too big.
Too small.

Then came the great invasion of the plastic takeaway container.

Chinese takeaway tubs entered the cupboard ecosystem and began competing for shelf space. 

Ice-cream containers, once destined for the recycling bin, found a second life storing everything from leftover spaghetti bolognese to homemade soup.

And somehow there were just as many containers in the fridge as there were in the cupboard itself. Opening the fridge revealed another layer of confusion. Every shelf held a kaleidoscope of mysterious plastic containers, some with forgotten meals and others filled with unidentified leftovers.

Most of our Tupperware had the family name written across both the containers and the lids in thick permanent marker – basically for recovery purposes. Because lending one of your good containers was never a gift; it was a temporary custody arrangement. There could be absolutely no confusion about who owned it and where it needed to be returned. 

As a kid, I would often confiscate Tupperware containers to store my Plasticine, effectively removing yet another container-and-lid combination from circulation forever.

Looking back, I probably contributed more to the disappearance of Tupperware containers than anyone else in the family. 

If mum thought there was a black hole swallowing missing Tupperware containers and lids, she didn’t need to look any further than my bedroom.

Across the country, the Australian ritual continues. Kitchen drawers will be opened with misplaced confidence, only to reveal a tangled democracy of plastic containers stacked, wedged, while some lids have long since gone rogue.

Some live under the fridge. Some have never been returned. Some have migrated to unknown cupboards. But the question will always get asked, “How do we have about 50 containers… and not a single matching lid in sight?”. Sorry mum!

Paul Dorin is the CityNews cartoonist.