Over at the play structure, morning recess starts off rather peaceful. Just about all of the kids are seated and eating their snacks. Then, by the second half of recess, when the kids have some food in their bellies, the benches around the play structure clear. The kids are running around, and where they had been sitting, is a slew of empty tupperware.
What’s fascinating about tupperware is what happens when the bell rings. Tons of tupperware is left behind. Tons of kids forget to grab them before they get back in line to go inside. That’s the predictable part. The fascinating part is when I inevitably start trying to track down the owners of abandoned containers. I’ve learned that these kids have eidetic memories for tupperware. No joke.
I will be making my way across the playground with an armful of tupperware, and by the time I get to the coalescing lines, all of the tupperware has been spoken for, but rarely, if ever, by the owner. After all, the owner forgot. Immediately, students will begin identifying the tupperware. That’s Johnny’s. That’s Mary Sue’s. That’s that second grader’s with the red ponytail holder. It’s incredible. Their eidetic memories are not even friend or grade specific; this is an indiscriminate gift.
In addition, the majority of these tupperware are indistinguishable. These are ordinary, buy-in-a-five-pack, blue top Glade tupperware. These are the tupperware you wouldn’t even be upset to lose. Sure, some of these tupperware are nicer--stainless steel, or the occasional, ill-advised glass--but they, too, are not differentiated from the other identical ones. Yet somehow, somehow, these kids just know which belongs to whom.
It’s just such a strange application for an eidetic memory.
It reminds me of the movie Inception. Inception redefined the word totem. Traditionally, a totem is an animal or object of spiritual significance, like a totem pole. In Inception, a totem is an object used in order to test if a person is in reality. We don’t have many alternate reality problems here at Corpus, but it’s an interesting concept.
I like to imagine that tupperware are the kids’ totems. Their tupperware, and their classmates’ recognition of said tupperware, is the proof of their reality and whether or not they are all occupying the same reality.
So, does a student exist if no one else knows their tupperware? Is a student stuck in an alternate reality recess if they can’t find their tupperware? Or if no one claims a tupperware? In that case, in what sort of crazy reality is the lost and found?
Signing off, Schoolyard Eagle Eye