For more than sixty years, a company called Tupperware, which makes plastic storage containers and bowls, has been selling its products in person ? not at a store, and not door-to-door, but in little get-togethers called Tupperware parties.
Women ? and it has been almost exclusively women ? get together at a neighbor's house, swap gossip, eat good food, and see a demonstration of Tupperware products. Then they place their orders for the containers they want. The host gets a percentage of whatever money is taken in.
This has been such a successful model that we now see lingerie parties, decorative basket parties, culinary recipe and gadget parties, parties where cosmetics are sold, and so forth.
But the latest craze may shock you. Literally. It's Taser parties. A taser is a stun gun of the type that police sometimes use to subdue suspects who resist arrest. They send forth a painful electric jolt ? which is precisely why citizens nationwide are buying them for personal protection.
Women who are alone at home at night, in particular, have been eager customers. And they're not just driving over to a gun shop or ordering the stun guns online. They're gathering at Taser parties, where a big seller is a Taser that's as pink as a princess's gown. Shocking pink.
One woman in Arizona who hosts Taser parties says she sells about thirty Tasers a month at three-hundred-fifty dollars each. She buys them in bulk a lot cheaper than that from the Taser Company and pockets the difference.
At these parties it's usually a metallic target, not one of the guests, who gets zapped. Everyone still gets coffee and cookies and, often, a good lunch. And the atmosphere is positively electric!