Stash Busting Mission 2012

Jorth strapped on her helmet, adjusted her aviator glasses, double checked her bullet-proof and quick-un-pick-proof vest, then took a deep, deep breath and dived into the sewing bureau. Her colleagues stood nervously by, the leader never taking his eyes off the large stopwatch that he held in his hand.

Silence filled the room, broken only by the steady tic tic tic of the watch. Nobody said anything - nary a lip moved, but one thought seemed to radiate out from all of them: Would she succeed? There was a heck of a lot of fabric in that bureau. The chance that she might become entangled in an old sewing magazine and perhaps find inspiration and want to rush off to the fabric store was not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Her objective was to retrieve only the supplies required for a pre-planned project, and to emerge with the fabric stash reduced, but you could never trust these new stash-busting recruits. The nervousness felt by the old-timers, some of whom were still faithfully working through stashes from the early 80's, began to swamp the room.

After what seemed like an eternity Jorth reemerged. She was triumphantly holding aloft some orange patterned cotton, a zip and a metre or so of ric rac, and was grinning self-consciously at them all as she straightened and dusted off the threads clinging to her.

The team leader crossed the room in two strides, signalled to one of the men to relieve Jorth of her spoils, and grabbed her fiercely by the shoulders as he began to interrogate her. "Did you find yourself wanting to add more fabric to the bureau? Perhaps mail-order some rare vintage buttons? Use a hidden mobile device to scoure Etsy for vintage patterns whilst you were under?" Jorth looked him square in the eyes and answered firmly "NO! I obeyed my mission instructions, and eliminated a project from the stash as directed, sir!"

The team lead's shoulders, which looked in danger at one stage of becoming attached to his ears, sunk in relief. "I'm proud of you, Stash Busting Private Jorth." Turning to his team, he fist pumped the air and with a rarely seen smile said "Well, folks, I think we can consider this stash-busting exercise a success!"