Take an old vase, add pretty stones to the bottom to weigh it down, and half-fill it with water! her personal aide chirped. Then add any leftover bits of shampoo or soap, and use it to store your toilet brush! Instant ease for cleaning, and a pretty, clean way to store your toilet brush! Her hand half-rose to tap the mute button for her aide, but then she stopped. Her aide tried its best to make every single thing she did better. It wasn't the aide's fault that she was stony-broke and scrubbing toilets on her knees in the public tram stations in order to make enough money to pay flophouse rent and buy about half as many groceries as she would like. She was grateful she couldn't pawn her aide, that it came so personalized and interwired that--


Inspiration: A Flylady email with--yes--that very tip.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Aide upgrade, pulling herself up by her bootstraps, social engineering, etc--could be great fun! A certain level of research would be required to make the social engineering parts work, but that would be part of what would make it a great story.

The morning cry of the rooster startled her awake from the half-drowse that she'd fallen into next to the warm hearth. With a cry of despair, she leapt to her feet. Bad enough that she'd fallen asleep without making the morning porridge, but tonight was the ball, and her stepmother and stepsisters were planning on waking up bright and early to begin their beautification. Nothing could be allowed to go wrong on such an important day--and anyone whose fault something going wrong was would be punished brutally. And it was always her fault. Always. It never failed. Let something topple from a shelf in the high corner of the mansion, and it would be seen as being her fault. This was actually her fault, and that would make her punishment worse. How could it possibly be--

Inspiration: A noise from somewhere.
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: This is just a standard-issue "moment in the life of Cinderella" thing. Does give me another idea, though!