Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Many moons ago when Misty was a little girl, she loved to explore where ever she went.* Unfortunately, Misty's mother wasn't over keen on her two year old daughter escaping from her pushchair and toddling off to explore shops, restaurants, farms, anywhere in fact her mother took her to.
Many was the time Misty's mum had to apologize to store managers whilst struggling to wrestle a wriggling toddler back into the confines of a harness because once again, Misty had found her way into the windows of the store and was entertaining the public by undressing the mannequins and removing limbs as she did so.
As little Misty was not only expert at escapology, she was skilled at playing hide and seek, and poor Misty's mummy would often have to spend hours asking other shoppers if they'd seen a small blonde child, possibly destroying part of the building on their travels.
Little Misty of course found these games wonderful fun, and enjoyed knowing store detectives, shop workers and the local police** knew her by name after a while.
One thing that Misty's mummy enjoyed doing to relax was to make clothes, and she was very good at doing so, and even made money out of selling her creations and having patterns printed.
One day she'd made a dress for herself and found she had enough fabric left over to make a mini matching outfit for little Misty.
The next time she took her daughter out while wearing their matching attire, many people 'Oohed and aahed' at the matching mum and daughter ensemble.
But sure enough, after a while little Misty managed to chew through the ropes and off she scampered into the wilds of the department store.
Next she knew, a strange woman stopped her saying 'Isn't that your mummy over there? She's looking for you, let's take you back to her before you get lost shall we?'
Little Misty was very confused as to how this harridan woman had known who her mother was, and was too shocked to tell her to get lost herself and instead sat quietly as she was tied into the hated pushchair once again.
Little Misty's mummy however had quickly cottoned on to why she'd got her child back so quickly, and quickly ran up a number of matching outfits for them to go out in.
For about a fortnight little Misty's mother was delighted to have her matching daughter returned to her so very quickly, and even if nobody had spotted Misty running away, all she had to ask was 'Has anyone seen my daughter? She's dressed the same as me!' and bingo, quick as a wink, one disgruntled small child was handed back to her.
For about a fortnight all was well and good with the world, and little Misty's mother was very happy that she could shop in peace once more.
Until one day she looked down and saw an empty space where her errant child should have been. Cheerfully she waited for someone to hand her child back, but no-one came forth. After a few minutes she asked ''Has anyone seen my daughter? She's dressed the same as me!', but this time nobody had seen her.
After about ten minutes she began to get rather worried and started to search for little Misty, but try as she might, she couldn't find her.
The mystery as to where little Misty had vanished to was solved when over the store tannoy came the announcement,
'Would the owner of a small, blonde child found in the toy department stark naked, please come to the Store Manager's office and collect her right away please!'.
Little Misty started play school five days a week very soon after that incident.

*And still does.
**Not any more.