Containment

We watch the show on Tupperware together
a little incredulous about the fuss
over plastic containers. I guess
you had to be there. Of course I was,
but later, somewhat younger
than my perceptive daughter
who notes the likeness
of sleek Brownie Wise
to Barbie
in her high
heeled
shoes,

pearls,
pink
two-piece suit,
pill-box hat,
matching fingernails
and painted smiles.
We lament the loss of the
real jobs held in World War II
by women whose outfits weren't central
to their performance. She asks me to tell
her how it happened, why, and the year it all
got better. So I talk about my mother's

life. About climbing the corporate step stool
when most middle class women, if they worked at
all, hosted the kind of parties dreamt
up by brilliant Brownie, who got dumped
by Mr. Tupper after
making him a millionaire.
No plastic doll, my
mother rose slowly,
worked harder,
worried more,
and
through

all
of
it made less
and got less
respect than her male
counterparts. Two small
children, a disapproving
mother-in-law and helpless
husband didn't make things better. I
can't tell my daughter what drove her to
put on those crushed-velvet pant suits every day
with their matching rayon neck scarves, but watching

what she went through, I knew I'd never be in
business. That and the teletype machines she
taught me to operate at twelve to
record customer returns every
day, evenings when she put in
the extra shift, children in
tow, nothing else to
do but watch a doz-
en T.V.
sets, dozing
on
a

La-
Z
Boy, snacking
now and then
from a bag of chips she
picked up on the way.
During the nineties, some jobs
and decades later, she rose
to Senior Vice-President of her
small company before a larger
one snapped it up, leaving Mom to start over,
like Brownie in her convertible, waving.