Why?

I have had a set of Tupperware plastic canisters for at least 25 years. A couple of years ago, the lid on a medium canister split. This is the sugar canister. I don't care about sugar. Bugs don't get into sugar. So I just put a piece of plastic wrap over the top and scrunched the lid back on.

Two weeks ago, or maybe more – I lose track of time – the kitchen was painted. That made me look at all the old, crappy stuff as I was moving it in boxes.

I thought, "I should get a new canister set for my nice, clean kitchen."

So I looked online. I couldn't find anything I liked. There was nothing as easy to keep clean as my old Tupperware. So I considered new Tupperware. It would have cost a small fortune for that. I just decided to keep my old stuff, give it a good cleaning, and see if I could procure a new lid for the broken one.

I found the part on the Tupperware site! I decided I should also buy new lids for the 2 larger canisters that get used a lot. So I called the phone number. There was a fellow who picked up the phone. A genuine English-speaking fellow. I told him what I wanted and gave him the part numbers. He doodled around with his computer for a minute then came back to me. "The large lids are only available in black," he said. My old ones are green. "That's okay," I said.

He told me there was no charge for the lids. "What?" I said, "It's only the medium one that's cracked, I just want the other two as spares, I'm happy to pay for them." He said, "No, you only need to pay $4.78 for shipping."

Wow! I felt so proud of myself for actually taking care of a problem. And on the phone, no less. I'm not great on the phone.

So this is what arrived only a few days after.

There is no replacement for the cracked lid. There are two black large lids and a replacement (updated model) for the medium canister. If I want to use it, I have to put the old, cracked lid on it.

The part number for the new canister is not even close to the part numbers for the lids.

Why does this always happen in my world?