Tupper-WHERE?

About a month after I moved in, I started getting strange, random invitations to various home sales parties. The postcards came rolling in for environmentally friendly cleaning products, candle parties, bath and body stuff. And I had no idea who was sending them to me because the address was for a house I didn’t see on our block and I didn’t recognize the name. I tossed them aside, assuming it was someone we’d run in to on our walks and they wouldn’t be offended.

So about a month ago, I got a knock on the door from a neighbor’s daughter, who hands Scott a piece of paper and takes off. Scott was already giggling when he walked up the stairs, so I was immediately concerned.

It turns out my neighbor was having one of those entertaining at home parties, where they sell cookware. The weirded out city girl in me was tempted to write it off the way I had the others: only in this case I actually knew the invitee, and she’d sent a rather cute emissary. Plus, the neighbor in question actually works in a test kitchen and I was actually dying to see her kitchen and some of the stuff she had bought. So I RSVPd and braced myself for my first neighborhood home sales party.

Let me just say, this wasn’t your Donna Reed type of party, sipping mint juleps and perusing piles of over-priced merchandise. There was booze, sure, and the cooking items were certainly more expensive than your average Amazon purchase. But instead of a room full of women in hoop skirts and hosiery, this was a room full of single women in their late 30s.

I learned some interesting facts about my neighbors as the liquor flowed: their divorce stories, odd child-rearing topics (I’m still baffled on how my neighbor is pregnant again when the two kids she has sleep with her every night, leaving hubby out on the couch), and their participation or interest in participating in more adult-themed home sales parties.

The saleswoman was actually one of the group, and about 10 minutes into her speech and 1,200 “shhhh, seriously guys!” she gave up, handed out the catalogue, and poured more wine. And I must say, I thought that was the most genius sales pitch EVER! I have $50 of merchandise coming to me that proves it.