Tidy
At 10 years old, the last thing you care about, is a tidy bedroom. Sheffield Wednesday, Formula One, the lasses off Byker Grove and Wham Bars, yeah, but tidying your bedroom? Barely a murmur of interest on the Scentless scale.

Now, that incensed my mum. Being a stickler for tidyness (imagine Monica off Friends, but tidier) this was anathema to her, and since I was 'supposed to be the sensible older brother' I had to book my ideas up...

But I wouldn't listen, and it got to the point where there were more clothes and books and tapes on the floor than on the shelves and cupboards.

Things came to a head one day, when before a visit to the corner shop, my mum said the following...

"If you don't tidy your room up by the time I get back from the shops, I'll throw everything in your room out onto the street, because you're not good enough to look after it all, so we might as well chuck it..."

Now, parents do this kind of threat knowing it'll be enough to get what they want, but, I was a clever little bastard, so I didn't bother.

So there I was, in my room playing on Thunderforce IV, when she burst in, to see the shitheap that was my bedroom.

Without a word, she opened the sash window, lifted the not-inconsiderable chest of drawers up onto the window ledge, and out onto the street. Within half an hour, everything in my bedroom apart from my bed, my Megadrive and TV, were distributed across the street, in full view of the neighbours and all whilst I stood, in sheer amazement, of what my mum had just done. I didn't even cry, I was that in shock.

"I'll give you an hour, and this room better be in the fucking (mums swearing!) state I expect by that time. Sort it."

I did. Picked up all the stuff off the street, brought it back in the house, rebuilt my wardrobe, chest of drawers and shelves, folded all the clothes away, packed all my tapes and games in their correct drawers, and then went without my tea as a reward.

Now, my mum might come across as a bit of a nutter, but if it wasn't for events like that, I'd not be where I am today. Neurotic, lacking in self-esteem and fearful of the opposite sex.

But still, she had a point.

Length? Even sword-swallowers have trouble.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 21:20, Reply)