ONE RED PAPERCLIP: HOW A SMALL PIECE OF STATIONARY TURNED INTO A GREAT BIG ADVENTURE

By: Kyle MacDonald

A red paperclip is currently sitting on my desk next to my computer. I want to trade this paperclip with you for something bigger or better, maybe a pen, a spoon, or perhaps a boot. If you promise to make the trade I will come and visit you, wherever you are, to trade.

So, if you have something bigger or better than a red paperclip, email me. Hope to trade with you soon! Kyle PS: I'm going to make a continuous chain of 'up trades' for bigger or better things until I get a house. Kyle MacDonald wanted his own house.

The problem was he didn't have a job and he didn't have any money. Thinking back to his childhood he remembered the game he loved to play 'Bigger and Better'. It was a way of trading your old stuff to get bigger and better new stuff.

Legend had it, some people managed to trade an old biro for a brand new car! This got Kyle thinking. If that kind of entrepreneurial spirit could turn tiny objects into big ones, then why not try trading up to a house? And then he saw it. One red paperclip, sitting on his desk, holding the pages of his CV together, ready to go out into the world and help him find the job that would eventually get him a house.

But that didn't sound nearly as much fun as trading. So he wrote an internet advert hoping to trade one red paperclip. Suddenly his inbox was full of responses.

The trading had begun. Did he get the house? You'll have to read his story to find out. He certainly did a lot of trades and met a lot of interesting people, including Alice Cooper.

One small paperclip was to be the beginning of a great big adventure.