Monday 23 August 2010

Not now, Prince Charming

A year ago, I wrote a post suggesting that Cinderella would have got bored with life at the palace and would have wanted to go back to a life where she had something to do, something to keep her busy.

I think I was wrong about that. Now I'm thinking that she would probably have refused to go back to the palace in the first place.

Imagine it. The night before, she had been whisked away from the kitchen, quite possibly before she had finished her evening chores (washing up after dinner, tidying the kitchen, putting the cat out) and had spent hours and hours at the ball. At the stroke of midnight, she has to go running back home and what do you think she finds?

Well, at a guess, and knowing what her sisters were like, she would have found teetering stacks of dirty dishes dumped on the kitchen table (and more spread like a fan round their chairs in front of the television), the leftovers from dinner spilt on the floor where the cat had been at them, her favourite saucepan blackened from a not very successful attempt to make hot chocolate, the bath left with a ring of grease and hair round it from cack-handed depilation, sodden towels on the floor and the toilet left unflushed.

And so, next morning, when the Prince comes a-knocking with the glass slipper, what would she have said? I haven't got time for any of this! Look at the state of the place! It's going to take me days to catch up and get it all straight again! I haven't even finished the washing-up yet and I'm never going to get lunch on the table in time. If you think I've got time to mess about with a silly slipper...

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