Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader® by Bathroom Readers’ Institute Read Free Book Online Page A

or “melted” and became deformed in hot water.
    Tupperware didn’t have any of these problems—it was odorless, non-toxic, lightweight. It was sturdy yet flexible and kept its shape in hot water. And if you dropped it, it bounced without spilling its contents. But consumers didn’t know all that, and they were so turned off by earlier plastics that they didn’t bother to find out.
    SILVER LINING
    As Earl Tupper pored over the dismal sales figures, he noticed that Tupperware was popular with two types of customers: 1)mental hospitals, which preferred Tupperware cups and dishes to aluminum because they didn’t dent or make noise when patients threw them on the floor; and 2) independent salespeople who sold goods distributed by Stanley Home Products, one of the companies that pioneered the “party plan” sales method.
Out of every 2 to 5 million lobsters, 1 is blue.
    Stanley salespeople hawked their wares by recruiting a housewife to host a party for her friends and acquaintances. At the party, the salesperson demonstrated Stanley products—mops, brushes, cleaning products, etc.—in the hopes of selling some to the guests. Quite a few companies still sell goods using the home party system, and if you’ve ever been invited to such a party, you probably know that they aren’t always the most pleasant of experiences. A lot of people attend only out of guilt or a sense of obligation to the host and buy just enough merchandise to avoid embarrassment. The same was true in the late 1940s: People could buy cleaning products anywhere, which made it kind of irritating to have to sit through a Stanley demonstration just because a friend had invited them. Even the Stanley salespeople knew it, and that was why growing numbers of them were adding Tupperware to their Stanley offerings.
    LIFE OF THE PARTY
    Tupperware was no mop or bottle of dish soap. It was something new, a big improvement over the products that had come before it. Once the salesperson explained its advantages and demonstrated how the lids worked—they had to be “burped” to expel excess air and form a proper seal—people were eager to buy it. They bought a lot of it, too: Tupperware sold so well at home parties that many Stanley salespeople were abandoning the company entirely and selling nothing but Tupperware.
    One of the most successful of the ex-Stanley salespeople was a woman named Brownie Wise. By the early 1950s, she was ordering more than $150,000 worth of Tupperware a year for the sizable home party sales force she’d built up, this at a time when Earl Tupper couldn’t sell Tupperware in department stores no matter how hard he tried. In April 1951, he hired Wise and made her a vice president of a brand-new division called Tupperware Home Parties, headquartered in Kissimmee, Florida. (Tupper remained in Leominster, Massachusetts, overseeing the company’s manufacturing and product design.) Brownie’s new job was to build the company’s sales force, just as she’d been so successful building her own.
    Tupper also pulled Tupperware from department stores. From then on, if you wanted to buy Tupperware (or any plastic container with an airtight lid, since Tupper controlled the patent), you had to buy it from a “Tupperware lady.”
    For Part II of the story, turn to page 232 .
Black, green, and oolong teas all come from the same plant.

JUDGES GONE WILD
It’s kind of a given that judges should have good judgment. And most of them do. But as for these folks, well...judge for yourself .
    J udge: William F. Singletary, who was elected to the Philadelphia Traffic Court in 2008
    Background: While running for the judgeship, Singletary was caught on video promising favorable treatment to campaign contributors at a “Blessing of the Bikes” motorcycle club gathering in a Philadelphia park. “If you all can give me $20—you’re going to need me in traffic court, am I right about that?...Now you all want me to get there. You’re going to need my