Everyone is familiar with Cinderella's version of the Cinderella story, but not too many people are familiar with the other version of her story. The story of her honestly not-so-wicked stepmom. Of course Cinderella's story paints her as an evil ugly person, but as we all know there are always two sides to every story. Perhaps my story can bring about a truer picture of what really happened so many years ago. As you may have guessed, my stepdaughter can be a bit of a drama queen, as can all girls. Believe me, I know about girls. I have two of my own and I won't deny that they are drama queens as well. Honestly, I am quite shocked at how many people over so many years have fallen for my stepdaughter's tale. I mean, really how can so many people believe that mice turned into horses, a pumpkin into a carriage and her supposed ratty dress into a beautiful evening gown?

My story starts off when I was a young woman, still in so many ways a girl myself. I was married off to a rich man, my family was struggling and because of my beauty I had many a man offer my family a lot of money for my hand in marriage. It was the richest man who won out and my family was taken care of for the rest of their lives because of that. I immediately had a daughter followed only a year later by another daughter. My husband was a man who loved to party and fun, he was terribly overwhelmed with the two babies. He left me the house and plenty of money while he ran off in the sunset.

Our land was in good condition and every crop that we planted flourished. Between the money left to us and the crops we did very good. But of course I was lonely for companionship and my girls wanted a father figure. One day while I was out in the market that's when I met him. He was travelling from afar and we happened to run into each other and it was love at first sight. After that he travelled my very frequently and each time brought gifts for me and my girls. Around his fifth visit he asked me to marry him and I gladly accepted.

Unlike the account of this story that you have heard before, my girls and I did not move into his home and take over. The reality of it was that we both sold our properties and bought an even bigger house in a better town than either of us were living in before. His daughter, Cindy, was very possessive of her father and got angry or pouty if he paid any attention to me or my girls. She would start crying and accuse her father of not loving her anymore, which of course made him feel guilty and he would do anything to make her feel better. She was very jealous of myself and my girls, instead of trying to make friends she was constantly setting everything up as a competition. She wanted her father to prove to her every hour of every day that he loved her more than anyone else.

As I have mentioned, we met because he travels so much. My stepdaughter would love to have everyone believe that he had actually died when the truth of the matter is that the part of the story that is always told happened when he was away on a business travel. That particular travel had lasted a very long time and we were all anxious for him to get back home. We had received word that he was only a few days away from returning home. I wanted the house to be sparkling clean when he got home so I announced to the three girls that we would all work very hard in the next few days to get the house clean for his arrival.

I asked the girls if they had any chores that they preferred to do, since I know that children will be more likely to get the work done if they get to choose what they do. My stepdaughter started to pout immediately. Then she started whining: why do I have to clean? I don't want to clean! I would rather go shopping or do something fun! Why do you make me clean all the time? You are such a slave driver! On and on she went. While she was going on my daughters told me what chores they would prefer and they got to work. I tried and I tried to get Cindy to choose some chores but wouldn't have anything to do with it. So I told her that she could clean the floors and the windows, a task equal to what my girls were already doing.

While my girls and I were cleaning the house (and Cindy had put on a ratty old dress she found in the attic proclaiming that I had made her a slave) a messenger from the king's palace came with a message stating that that evening was to be a royal ball in honor of the prince. No, the prince wasn't looking for a bride. He had in fact already found a bride and that was what the ball was in celebration of. Since we had so much cleaning to do I got a little frantic, trying to get everyone to clean faster so that we could have the house clean enough and be able to go to the ball.

Cindy finally decided to help out but she was being very unhelpful as she pretented to help out. She grabbed the mop and mopped two square feet and proclaimed that she had cleaned the whole floor. Then she washed one corner of one window and said that she had cleaned the windows. At that point my girls were finished with their chores and asked if they could start preparing for the ball. I told them yes and Cindy jumped up to get ready herself. I told her that she had not done her chores and that she needed to get them done first. That's when she started calling herself Cinderella and started yelling at me that I was making her do her chores AGAIN. Even though she had not done them in the first place except to be dramatic and only clean a small part of what she was supposed to clean.

I went up to my room to get myself ready for the ball and left the drama queen to finish her chores. If she got started right then she would still have plenty of time to finish the chores AND get ready for the ball. After about fifteen minutes I could hear some sort of commotion going on in the part of the house where the girls rooms are. I went into see what was going on and they were all standing in the hallway yelling at each other. They were fighting over some accessories, each girl claiming that the accessories belonged to her. I helped them sort it out, giving to each girl what belonged to her. Then I asked Cindy if she had finished her chores yet and she started yelling at me about what a slave driver I was. I simply told her to finish up so that she could start getting ready.

As I continued to get ready I could hear her downstairs carrying on about how she was a slave and how I made her do everything and how neither I nor my daughters had to do anything -- even though we had all done a lot of work while she was carrying on earlier. She even went so far as to claim that the mice running around outside were her only friends and how they did more to help her than we ever did. If it wasn't all aimed at myself and my daughters it would have been quite humorous. Finally I went downstairs and told her that if she didn't get her chores finished she wouldn't have time to get ready for the ball. I told her it was her choice if she went or stayed home to finish her chores.

That's when she started ripping the ratty dress that she had put on earlier. She yelled at me more about what a slave driver I was and how evil I was being to her. Then she ran to the fire place (which had not been used in weeks) and grabbed the ashes and threw them all over herself, saying how she was REALLY Cinderella with all the cinders all over her. I kept my composure and told her that it really was up to her if she went to the ball or not. I went outside to make sure that our horses and carriage were ready, they had to be in pristine shape if I was bringing them to the palace.

About fifteen minutes later I heard a big commotion coming from inside the house. I sighed and went inside, not wanting to know what was going on in there. I got inside and the girls were all yelling at each other again, this time my girls had their dresses ripped and were crying and yelling at my stepdaughter. They said that she had ripped their dresses. This was the point where I could no longer keep my composure, the point where Cindy took full advantage and coined the term wicked stepmother. I started yelling at her about how if she would have just done her chores in the first place none of this would have happened. I told her that I would help my girls with their dresses but that Cindy was on her own finding a dress to wear and getting ready. Honestly, a person can only take so much!

She started yelling at me about how she would just get her only friends -- the field mice -- to help her with her dress then. Then she stomped up to the attic claiming that to be her bedroom. I just let her carry on while I helped my hysterical daughters calm down and find new dresses to wear. I told them that I would try to sew up the tears in their dresses. Finally I had my girls calmed down and had gotten them ready in just the nick of time, we had to leave very soon.

No sooner did we get to the door when Cindy ran down the stairs wearing an old dress of my oldest daughters. My oldest daughter about lost it when she saw her old dress, she literally threw herself on Cindy and pulled the dress right over her head and shouted that she would never let Cindy wear one of her dresses after how she's been treating all of us. Then of course Cindy went hysterical, even claiming that the dress had once belonged to her dead mother.

I told Cindy that if she was going to go to the ball she needed to march straight to her room -- and not the attic -- and get one of her own dresses on and run out to the carriage in ten minutes or we were leaving without her. My girls were mad at me, asking how I could give her another chance after all she had done. They said that I was being unfair to them by giving her ten minutes to get ready and to put on a dress of her own. Didn't I love them? I was really getting it on all sides!

Exactly ten minutes later Cindy made a mad dash into the carriage, wearing a very familiar sparkly white dress with some pink sashes up and down the dress. My girls started yelling at her because the dress that Cindy was wearing was in fact my wedding dress which she had somehow managed to sew the sashes onto! I was tempted to rip the dress off her like my daughter had done a few minutes ago but I decided to keep my composure and wait until after the ball to deal with this issue. All three girls were screaming at each other until I whistled really loud and told them that we would never be allowed into the ball if they continued to act like this. The rest of the ride was in silence.

When we got there, Cindy was pouting and refused to get out of the carriage. I asked the driver to watch her as my girls and I went in and began enjoying the ball. About an hour later I still hadn't seen her come in and was going to go check on her but I didn't need to. She made her grand entrance -- probably late so that everyone could her (my!) dress that she was wearing. Everyone did see her come in and gasped at her dress.

The ball was celebrating the engagement of the prince and it was so obvious that Cindy was jealous of the bride to be. I could overhear her talking to her friends and loudly saying all kinds of comments about everything that she thought was wrong with the bride to be. As the night had been going on the prince gave each female present one dance. Cindy of course sucked it up and was very dramatic about the whole thing during her dance.

After her dance I told all the girls that it was time to go home, and she whined the whole way about how after being at the castle our carriage was nothing more than a stinky pumpkin. She was mad that I made her leave before she wanted to, but I thought that midnight was late enough for everyone to be out.

The next day some of the prince's men came to each home and thanked all the ladies for attending and dancing with him. Nobody had any glass slippers nor did I try to hide her from the prince's men.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!