Labor Day -- Another Holiday, another Ahhhhh

Holidays are so much better now that MIL and FIL are both Down Below (and I don't mean in Australia -- that's Down UNDER)!

I have a convention for a hobby that I am in that starts the Sunday before Labor day and ends Labor Day Sunday. This convention is about three hours away, so I spend a night. The two biggest days used to be Saturday and Sunday before Labor Day. I started going Friday and Saturday so I could "be home in time to have dinner with" DH. That was basically to keep him from disappearing the entire weekend to the In-laws.

As I stated before, it was not him visiting them that bothered me. It was that when he visited, he spent hundreds of dollars on them and they wore him to the bone (sometimes literally) with chores. He would come home bruised and cut from jamming his hand while fixing something or something. And he would never bring tools or old clothes with him. So he ruined a set of clothes and had to buy new tools when there. THen he came home in a bad mood. So my reasons for not wanting him to visit were money, and his mood when he got home.



Now I still go Friday and Saturday and get home in time for supper on Saturday, but that is because those are now the two main days. Sunday is a winding-down day and there are more people in attendance on Friday than on Sunday.

Sometimes in past years I left before I really was quite ready on Saturday so I could be home in time. This year, I actually left a little earlier than that, but it was because things were winding down, not because I felt like I had to leave when I did. Again, it's a shifting of the traditions and when other people are there and things are going on. When I first started going Friday and Saturday, there were very few people there Friday. I had to pry myself away by 3pm Saturday. This time, I was really ready to go by 1pm, having done all I wanted and seen all who I wanted to see. So I left then, and took my time getting home, stopping at an outlet mall and doing what I wanted to do.

This year, I went the had the schedule and dates I wanted to go for no other reason than that those were the two "most fun" days.

Thousands of Dollars in Tupperware

I wrote about going through JB's Tupperware and the smell getting to me.

Now, I am realizing more. There were six bags of Tupperware plus the "hostess kit" which had all kinds of strange gadgets. As I was searching the web for what some of these gadgets might be, I was coming across some of the items and how much they originally cost.

There is at least enough in each bag to have cost $1000 new. And the stuff in the bags is a drop in the bucket compared to what this woman had in Tupperware. She didn't have all the various kinds of eating plates in there. None of the oven stuff or microwave stuff. Really, none of the stuff that I remember seeing. If it was made by Tupperware in the 1980s and 1990s, she had at least one of them. WHY???? Why, for example, did she have not one, but two dill pickle holders in the stuff that hubbie brought home? And how many more did she have.

I can really think of lots of things that she had that would have filled those bags several times over. There were canister sets, baby toys, and all kinds of gadgets and gizmos. I would bet there was $50k in Tupperware in that house, not in value, but in what she spent on it. She had to pay for what she had herself. She also had to pay for the stuff that she had in her kit. Guess that's why she had at least two of a lot of stuff. She had some to take to parties and just as much again to use. Then there is the Tupperware that she gave away during her lifetime.

She also had to pay for all supplies used to sell Tupperware. Including a per item price for the order forms and catalogs. She also had to pay for the "hostess gifts" and door prizes given away at the parties. She had to eat the price herself of Tupperware that did not get paid for by customers.

Most months, she sent them money.

It would not make me mad if this had just been in her estate and she had squandered away hubbie's and SIL's inheritances on it. But during the time she was at the peak of being involved with Tupperware was also the time that hubbie was at the peak of supporting her.
I had once figured over $100K that he gave spent on them for things like the mortgage, cars, major appliances, etc. Now we can add half as much again for it. All the money that she spent on Tupperware, whether her own or hubbie's could have gone towards paying her living expenses and other expenses that she expected my hubbie to pay for her.