The Princess and the Pea - The Modern Day Version
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In a kingdom over the hills and far away, there lived a young prince who was
very full of himself. He was healthy, relatively handsome, and had had more than
his fair share of happiness and comfort growing up. Yet he felt that he deserved
something more. It was not enough for him to have been born into a life of parasitical
leisure and to keep the masses firmly under the heel of his calfskin boot. He
was also determined to perpetuate this undemocratic tyranny by marrying only a
real, authentic, card-carrying princess.
His mother the queen encouraged her son's obsession, despite the obvious risks
of haemophiliac or microcephalic grandchildren. Many years earlier, after a period
of inadequate wellness, his father the king had achieved corporal terminality.
This lack of a strong male presence gnawed at the prince on a subconscious level,
and no amount of weekend retreats and male bonding with other young dukes and
barons could relieve this anxiety. His mother, for her own co-dependent and Oedipal
reasons, did not bother to change or correct his selfish notions of unattainable
perfection in a spousal lifemate.
In his quest for the perfect partner, the prince travelled far and wide, looking
for someone to enslave in matrimony. Astride his trusty equine colleague, he went
from kingdom to queendom and from dukedom to duchessdom, asking for names and
phone numbers. Heavily or lightly pigmented, vertically or horizontally challenged,
cosmetically attractive or differently visaged he cared not a whit. His only criterion
was the royal authenticity of a woman who could share his regal delusions of privilege
and personal worth.
One rainy night, after a long journey to many far-off bioregions, the prince
nourished himself with a bowl of lentil-curry stew and confided his fears to his
mother: "I don't think I'll ever find a genuine princess with whom to share
my life, Mummy."
"Well, Son," the queen reassured him, "don't forget the many
benefits of the single life. Don't let society and the church pressure you into
a lifestyle for which you might not be suited."
"Perhaps I should widen my scope a bit," he mused.
"What? And throw out your standards?"
"No, Mummy, perhaps I have fallen into a trap of the orthodox heterosexualist
majority. Maybe there is a fine young prince out there for me. It's at least worth
a try."
Before his mother could answer, there was a knock on the castle door. The
servants pulled open the heavy portal, and out of the rain stepped a young woman,
who was moisture-enhanced from head to foot. She was certainly attractive to the
eye, if you're the type of shallow person. who attaches value to appearances.
Luckily for our story, the prince was not one of those types. He had one standard,
and only one standard, classist though it may have been.
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