Okay, Here's my contribution. As a matter of fact I couldn't think of amything to write for a couple of days and you all overwhelmed me with your creative responses so I just sat down and wrote this today - which I had vaguely been toying with in my head over the weekend.

I'm starting to think that we should make this a regular event - pick three items at random and challenge the creative Mudcat geniuses - singular and collective - to create.

Helen

PS I hope the paragraph breaks format properly. ****************

One day a flea decided that he was tired of living in the poorer part of town, living in run-down houses and feeding off malnourished people. He wanted luxurious surroundings and the taste of rich foods in the blood of his parasitic hosts. Even though he loved the dried-blood colour of the walls and hallways of his apartment block, because it reminded him of food, he was sure that a better future awaited him somewhere else. He didn't want to leave his friends and family either, but he wanted more from life than he could ever get by living here. So, he hopped out of a second storey window, floated down in the breeze and proceeded to hop northward to the better part of town.

He kept on hoppping forward,never turning back, and when evening fell he hopped into a very fancy looking bar. It wasn't just any local pub or bar, it was a club bar with soft music and plush pile carpet and velvet upholstery on the seats. He hopped around under the tables looking at all of the patrons until, suddenly across the room, he saw exactly what he was looking for.

Sitting alone at a table there was a very elegant lady in a pale coloured business suit. She was delicately peeling an orange, without getting any of the juice on herself or her suit. The flea decided that he wanted to go home with this beautiful lady so he hopped over and found a hiding place in her rather large handbag. He couldn't work out why this elegant lady should have a bicycle seat in her handbag, but he was so pleased to have found her that he just snuggled down and rested after his long day, and savoured his pleasant sense of anticipation about the wonderful place he would live in from now on.

After a while the flea was awoken by movement. He looked up from inside the handbag and saw that the lady was getting ready to leave the bar. He watched from his hiding place as she gathered her things together, smoothed her clothes, picked up her handbag and walked towards the exit. He was curious when he realised that she was walking towards the rear exit of the bar, and watched as they came out into a back lane. He crawled up to the top edge of the handbag so that he could get a cleared view and watched as the lady went over to a bicycle chained to a lamppost. It didn't have a bicycle seat, but she took the bicycle seat and a screwdriver out of her handbag and proceeded to screw the seat onto the bicycle.

By this time the flea was very intrigued. Why would such an elegant lady, who appeared to be able to afford the most luxurious car, be riding a bicycle parked in a back lane behind a bar?

In a very short time the lady had attached the bicycle seat, wiped her hands on a cloth and replaced the cloth in a neat little plastic bag, strapped her belongings onto the carry rack, and then hitched up her skirt and rode down the lane and out onto the street. The flea watched and was happy to see that she rode northward along the street, but when she reached the fourth corner she turned left and then left again and started heading southward along another street.

She rode on and on until the flea fell asleep with the rocking motion of the bicycle. He awoke with a start as he heard the bicycle being clunk-clunk-clunked up some stairs. He climbed up onto the rim of the handbag, looked around him and saw, to his horror, the same walls painted the colour of dried blood which he had left that morning before his big adventure. Surely the lady couldn't live here, in his part of town. She was far too rich and elegant to live here, but he heard her talking to a man as she entered her flat.

"Hi Honey, I'm home", she said. "I know I said it would be worthwhile getting that fancy job in town, wearing fancy clothes and going to fancy places, but I'm always so much happier getting back here to our own little flat. It's not luxurious but it's home."

The flea reeled in shock and fell back down into the handbag. All of his travelling had been in vain. He was tired after his long day, he hadn't sucked even one drop of blood since breakfast, and now he would have to start looking for a place to live all over again.

Then, a thought struck him. If he stayed in this flat, lived off these people, and then stowed away in the lady's handbag every day he could have the best of both worlds. He could still live in his own neighbourhood, close to his friends and family, but he could travel to the centre of the city every day in the handbag and have big adventures and suck the blood of lots of people who lived on rich, tasty foods.

He finally decided that he was in flea heaven here after all.