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Annie
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Once upon a time there lived a middle-aged lady, not in a shoe, but in a house which was hardly bigger than a shoe box.
She had so many children (well, 4 actually) she just didn't know what to do with all the clutter,clothes, books, toys and gubbins 4 kids & 2 adults seem to hoard for no apparent reason.
So, one day, she had a massive clearout. Bags for the charity shop were overflowing with odds and sods, the neighbours kids were given all the decent toys, clothes, books etc, hubby was made to trawl the hidden depths of his wardrobe but STILL there was more ...
As the lady sat in her shoebox bemoaning her lack of storage, a Fairy Godmother (cleverly disguised as her best friend) came to her door requiring sustenance in the form of tea & buns.
'Oh dear middle aged lady' she said, 'For a cup of your finest PG tips and a couple of Malted Milks, I can help you make your home a clutter free haven once more ... just as it was many, many years ago, before the kids came along'
Of course, the lady was both sceptical and curious so, she made the Fairy Godmother tea, gave her a whole packet of Malted Milks (a rare find indeed in a house so full of children), sat beside the Fairy Godmother and listened eagerly as she began to tell her tale.
Fairy Godmother sipped her tea, dunked her biscuit, had a ciggie, sipped her tea again until the lady (who, by now, was getting just a tad impatient) finally said,
'Oh for gawds sake woman, just hurry up and tell me ... and in future DON'T wear pink sparkly dresses on a Tuesday teatime, they do sod all for your backside'
At this the Fairy Godmother looked a little crestfallen (actually she belted the lady round the ear and told her SHE was no oil painting either, but I digress ..) but then began her tale of a place where you could take your clutter etc and turn it into cold, hard cash.... the name of this place was Ebay.
Now the lady had been to Ebay on a few occasions but was always under the impression that Ebay was a place that you only bought things from, & where mere mortals such as herself were at the mercy of the vast shopping experience that was Ebay.
'But how do you think the things get on there for you to buy?' asked the Fairy Godmother(with a 'Blimey, she's all alone on her planet' look on her face), 'People like you and I put all their unwanted stuff on there in the hope that others will want it'
The lights suddenly came on, the music started playing and I had an epiphany ... oh, wait, no, it's the 14yr old playing his Xbox ...
So, together, they sat at the lady's computer and set up a sellers account which was so easy the lady wondered why she hadn't done it before (probably because she was a secret technophobe & really couldn't be arsed to learn!).
All set up and ready to sell the Fairy Godmother left the lady's shoebox with one final warning .... 'Clean your house from top to bottom now because once you become an Ebay seller you will never have the time to do it again'
And with that she disappeared in a puff of smoke ... those roll-ups don't half pong ...
Now in order for the lady to succeed as an Ebay seller she needed the assistance of a Knight in shining armour, aka hubby, so she waited patiently for him to come back from a hard day dragon slaying & gave him his favourite meal for his tea (and had to promise him afters ... the things us women do in order to learn how to use a digital camera ....).
Whilst said Knight was fortifying himself with egg and chips, the lady went into a frenzy of activity, running around the shoebox gathering clothes here, shoes there, even going so far as wrestling with the two trolls who lived in the dark, dank,pit at the end of the upstairs landing (others who gazed upon them only saw them in their everyday guise as the lady's 2 teenage sons but the lady knew better)in order to remove non essential items from their room (from which she had a lucky escape as she had forgotten to tie a rope to her waist in order to be hauled safely out in case she got sucked under all the gubbins).
The cry went up 'Hide your stuff!! Mum's on the warpath and this time she's serious!!
Old magazines were quickly squirrelled away, hubby hid his Xbox games, youngest daughter hid her crayons, eldest daughter took her boyfriend and left home (thankyou Ebay, half the clutter gone in one fell swoop!!) and, at the end of a couple of hours, the lady had 4 black bin bags full of stuff with the boys room still mostly uncharted territory ...
The Knight taught the lady how to use the digital camera, (in return for a kiss), her eldest daughter found her own shoebox and is gradually filling it with her own cr... oops, clutter & even the 2 teenage boys are beginning to reap the benefits of being able to find what they were looking for in their room without having to hire an excavator.
Smallest daughter is still coming to terms with the fact that as soon as she puts clothes for a wash she may never see them again but as she gets older she will learn that nothing is forever ....
And the lady? Well, she spends most days sat under her stairs thinking up decriptions for items she sells ... and she's doing quite well too.
Only problem now is, all the things she sells have to be stored somewhere so instead of loose clutter she now has mounds of labelled clutter... 'Ready for pics'.. Selling'.. 'Sold' ... To be posted'...
She tells herself that she's doing her bit for recycling and that eases her conscience greatly:)
Life didn't miraculously change in the shoebox but they are living happily ever after (well, until hubby falls over yet another pile of stuff to be posted ...)
And that's the end of the story :)
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