The Tupperware of Doom

It started, like most disasters, in Janet Halberstrom’s refrigerator.

Janet was not what you’d call adventurous. She alphabetized her spice rack, scheduled her dental cleanings ten years in advance, and still used a landline “in case of emergencies.” Her biggest thrill was setting her washing machine to the “Whitest Whites” cycle and feeling morally superior about it.

So when, on an unseasonably warm Tuesday, Janet opened her fridge to retrieve a string cheese and discovered a Tupperware container she did not recognize, it marked the most exciting moment of her year.

She stared at it.

Round. Opaque. Pale green lid.

Not hers.

Janet narrowed her eyes. She had a strict Tupperware registry, complete with serial numbers (Sharpie, bottom of container). This one lacked such markings. She poked it. It felt... warm?

Her cat, Lord Sassafras, leapt onto the counter and hissed at it.

A lesser woman might have called the authorities. Or a priest. Janet, however, believed in protocol. She donned her yellow rubber gloves, wrapped the container in a sacrificial dish towel from her ex-husband’s bachelor gift set (“Live, Laugh, Lager”), and placed it on the kitchen table.

Then she sat.

And waited.

Hour two. The Tupperware had not moved. Janet brewed chamomile tea and stared at it over the rim of her “World’s Okayest Aunt” mug.

Lord Sassafras refused to enter the kitchen, choosing instead to hide behind the water heater, meowing with dramatic despair. He occasionally swatted a pipe for emphasis.

Eventually, curiosity won. Janet approached the container with a fork, spoon, salad tong, and crucifix (relic from a Halloween party in 1998). She pried the lid.

A hiss.

A glow.

A low mechanical hum that sounded suspiciously like Kenny G being auto-tuned through a fax machine.

Then, silence.

Janet peeked inside.

It contained what appeared to be a meatball. A perfectly spherical, gently vibrating, possibly sentient meatball. It pulsed like it had feelings.

Janet recoiled.

The meatball spoke.

Not in words—Janet wasn’t insane (yet). But it communicated directly into her mind, with a voice that sounded a lot like Benedict Cumberbatch reading erotic grocery lists.

<We are the Ambrosium. Your kind is unworthy of our knowledge. Except you, Janet Halberstrom. You are... adequate.>

Janet blinked. “I’m what?”

<Adequate. Do not let it go to your head.>

The meatball (or “Ambrosium Pod Alpha-7B,” but Janet refused to call it that) claimed to be a bio-data storage orb containing the secrets of the cosmos, cleverly disguised to avoid detection. It had crash-landed into Janet’s fridge via an interdimensional breach.

“Where did the breach lead?” she asked, half-expecting it to say “New Jersey.”

<The Delta Quadrant of Zandralon.>

“That’s a Safeway freezer aisle in Hoboken.”

<Your grocery stores are disturbing.>

It told her things. Terrible, glorious, deeply stupid things.

The moon is actually a hollow surveillance drone powered by dad jokes.

Avocados are a failed alien experiment in weaponized fruit.

The Bermuda Triangle is just where the universe dumps obsolete fax machines.

In return, it demanded tribute.

“Tribute?”

<Soufflés. And gossip.>

And so, Janet baked. She hadn’t used her soufflé dishes since the infamous Thanksgiving of ’09 (her cousin Phyllis still had nightmares about the Gruyère Incident). But she followed the Ambrosium’s instructions and baked twelve per week, each more elaborate than the last.

She also gossiped like a church lady on espresso.

“You would not believe what Gary at the post office said about Myrtle’s new Prius—”

<She has concealed a ferret in the glove compartment. Continue.> Soon, Janet’s house became... different.

The lights flickered in sync with her mood.

The microwave only worked when she told it a knock-knock joke.

Lord Sassafras developed telepathy and started judging her every decision even harder.

And then there were the dreams. Vivid, swirling tapestries of cosmic calculus, vibrating tangerines, and a being known only as “The Sentient Nacho.”

Janet, to her surprise, didn’t hate it.

In fact, she was thriving.

She began wearing robes. Not like bathrobes—wizard robes, covered in constellations and snack crumbs. She stopped going to book club, citing “a prior engagement with the Galactic Fold.”

At first, her neighbors thought she’d joined a cult. When she explained she was the cult now, they avoided eye contact and started mowing their lawns more frequently.

She started receiving packages addressed to “The Keeper of the Orb.” One included a limited edition spatula engraved with her name and what she hoped was a Latin phrase, but might’ve just been IKEA instructions.

But things got... complicated.

The meatball got clingy.

<You have not told me about your dentist’s tragic divorce this week. Have you no loyalty?>

“I have a dentist appointment on Friday.”

<I require spoilers.>

It started expanding. Subtly at first—an inch here, a ripple there—but soon it was the size of a beach ball and emitted the scent of cinnamon toast and existential dread.

It began to vibrate so loudly that Janet’s neighbor, Glenn, knocked on the door.

“Janet, everything okay in there? Sounds like someone’s trying to microwave a lawnmower.”

Janet cracked the door and peered through the two-inch gap. “Cosmic intrusion. Don’t touch the begonias.”

Glenn nodded slowly. “Right. Of course.” He backed away like she was holding a raccoon with a machete.

The government took notice.

A black van began parking across the street, unmarked, unless you count the poorly concealed Wi-Fi hotspot “DefinitelyNotNSA.”

Janet waved to them. Sometimes she brought cookies. They never took them.

Then came the cultists.

One by one, people began arriving on her lawn. Some wore robes, others bath towels. All carried spatulas.

“The Orb has chosen you,” said a man in a foam finger hat. “Let us bask in its microwaved wisdom.”

Janet sighed. “It’s not an orb. It’s a meatball. And it still owes me six soufflés’ worth of eggs.”

The real trouble came when the meatball tried to run for office.

It created a PAC. Released campaign ads. Promised universal flan and tax breaks for introverts.

It was polling at 2%.

Against a mop.

The slogan: “The Meatball Knows.”

It even tried to hold a rally in her living room. Fifty-seven people showed up. One dressed as a lasagna. The other sat in the sink, live-streaming to a Twitch channel called “OrbVibes420.”

Janet decided enough was enough.

She stormed into the kitchen, clutching a rolling pin and a bottle of ranch dressing.

“This ends now,” she declared.

<You wouldn’t dare.>

“Watch me.”

She chased the meatball around the kitchen. It dodged, hummed, launched a tiny sonic boom, and briefly merged with the toaster. But Janet had years of practice wrestling with malfunctioning fondue sets.

She cornered it. Whispered an ancient phrase.

“Microwave. Defrost. Level 7.”

The meatball trembled. And then, with a final squeal that sounded suspiciously like Celine Dion gargling yogurt, it imploded into itself.

Gone.

Janet exhaled.

Lord Sassafras emerged from the dryer and nodded solemnly.

Weeks passed. Life returned to something resembling normal. The neighbors resumed ignoring her. The black van disappeared. The gossip dried up, and Janet returned to alphabetizing her cereal boxes.

But sometimes, late at night, when the fridge hums just right and the leftover lasagna glows faintly under the LED light, Janet wonders.

Was it real?

Was she chosen?

She opens the fridge.

There, nestled between a container of expired yogurt and a jar of pickles she can’t remember buying, sits a small, round object.

Vibrating. Glowing. Pulsing.

This one looks like a hush puppy.

Janet smiles.

“I hope you like soufflé.”

But the hush puppy had different tastes.

Its voice was sharper. Less "Benedict Cumberbatch" and more “Werner Herzog trying ASMR.”

<We are the Deep Fried Confederacy. Prepare the fryers.>

Janet narrowed her eyes. “No. We’re doing salad now.”

Lord Sassafras meowed once, rolled his eyes, and began sharpening a spatula.

Because this time, it wasn’t going to be soufflés and gossip.

It was going to be war.

And Janet had just bought an air fryer.