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As she began picking up the party poppers, streamers and other paraphernalia the woman sighed.  It was quiet now everyone had gone.  The in-laws had taken her son home with them to give her a chance to clear up uninterrupted. Children’s parties were always hard work, but watching the sheer joy on their faces made it worth it.  Most of the children had been from her son’s class at school together with a couple of others.  The age range was predominantly aged four to five.  At that age all children can be hard work – but their logic and perceptions of life are also a pure joy.  They had all behaved well and there had only been a few tears over a toy car.  Nothing major.  The face painting had been a great success – even though most of the children had wanted to paint themselves or each other!  The bouncy castle had been a fantastic addition and had done much to drain the over excited tots from running riot.  So all in all, it had been a success – so why did she feel so flat?  ‘I’m just tired’, she told herself.

She’d cleared away the party food and paper plates, all she had to do now was vacuum and give the kitchen a quick going over.  She looked over at her partner.  He was still reading the paper.  How can someone read the paper for 3 hours and ignore everything around them?  She wondered why he had even bothered coming.  She plugged in the vacuum cleaner and made a start.  One bonus was that it was one of those vacuums that had a light at the front, which meant you could easily see to pick up all of the bits of debris, even in the darkest corners.  ‘Arghh’, she thought, ‘is this what my life has come to?  Getting excited over a vacuum with a light?’  Life really must have become mundane.  As she vacuumed on autopilot, her thoughts ran away with her.  ‘What has happened to me?  I’ve turned into one of the  ‘Stepford Wives’.  I used to be an independent, free thinking woman…’