PANDORA'S BOX


Media coverage this week of redundant employees leaving their workplaces with personal possessions in cardboard boxes was reminiscent of the situation so many clients find themselves in. Frequently they opt to move out hastily taking only what they can carry with them and decisions have to be made about what they leave behind. Indeed I’m regularly asked what the potential departer should take in such circumstances. Invariably my advice suggests those items of sentimental value that cannot be replaced.

Once upon a time however a client called Pandora chose to vacate her home of 22 years at 8 o’clock one morning, immediately she had eaten her breakfast. In her haste to get away, however, she left all her worldly goods behind, including a box she had carefully packed and placed on the table in front of her. When she came to see me, she was distraught and I duly wrote to her husband’s solicitor proposing that the box which my client had left on the table be delivered to my office.
Three days later a package arrived.
“I wonder what’s in there,” mused my secretary as she gave the box a shake and the package responded with a rustling noise.

I telephoned Pandora who dashed down to collect her belongings. In her impatience, she ripped off the wrapping in my presence to reveal…………… a box of cornflakes from the breakfast table! Somehow I don’t think it was what she was expecting, though she had to concede it had been on the table when she left. On my part this episode has always given a completely different meaning to the expression “Pandora’s Box.”

Comments

Anonymous said…
That is a funny story, almost hard to believe it is true! At first, I thought there was going to be an animal in the box!

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