One upon a time, there was a little prince named Miguel. He had a very good life though he sometimes forgot that fact. One day, he worked very hard and earned $6 for raking leaves with his mother, the smart and witty queen. She then told him that she would take him to a party at a skating rink. He was excited and decided that he would take $2 with him to the rink and save $4 to put in his piggy bank (for the little prince was saving money to buy Goofy Golf).
The little prince, his sister the princess and the queen went to the skating party and had a wonderful time. The little prince skated and skated and skated. The princess, who was too young to skate, played skee ball and touched every germy surface possible. The queen showed pride in the little prince's skating and followed the princess around with wet wipes. The little prince took a break from skating and decided to play some skee ball and spent his $2 doing so. He earned numerous tickets that he later exchanged for a prize that was worth roughly 1/16th of the value of his original investment. Still, he was happy. The little princess was happy because the queen bought her a pink kazoo. The queen was happy because she had survived it all.
The royal family returned home. The princess went to bed and the little prince had a bath. As the prince bathed, he became increasingly hostile towards the kind and beautiful queen. He demanded more money from her. He told her that he would never listen to her again. He said that he would splash water on the floor and never clean it up. He said that he would never get out of the tub. Never. The queen began to think of the prince as an ungrateful little shit. She began to raise her voice ever so slightly. She began to speak through clenched teeth. Then, she decided not to speak at all. When faced with silence, the little prince collapsed in a soggy heap in the tub. He cried and cried and told the queen that she was the meanest mother ever. The queen removed the prince from the tub and dried him off, fighting the urge to throw him in the moat with the alligators. She was tired because the other queen of the castle was in Mozambique and had been for nearly a week. She wanted to put the prince's naked little butt to bed without another word so that she could watch The Amazing Race on the royal television. Instead, she took a deep breath and she asked the little prince to talk to her, to tell her why he was so angry and disrespectful. The little prince told the queen his tales of woe. He told her that kids at school sometimes tease him. He told her that his feelings are hurt when the little princess yells at him. He told her that, sometimes, the queen mothers make him feel bad too. And then, he told her what the queen believes was the root of all of this trouble. He wished that he had not spent his $2 playing skee ball. He wished that he had saved his money because he worked so hard for it and could not get it back. Oh, the tears that flowed over those $2. After all the tears had dried, the little prince was no longer angry and disrespectful. He no longer thought the queen was an evil miser and the queen no longer thought he was a toad. She tucked him into his bed and they cuddled together until he fell fast asleep.
The children slept and the queen blogged and they lived happily ever after.
4 comments:
Yet another etiquette lesson for me to jot down in my parenting book! Vikki, you are good.
Well, you have the patience of a queen while I likely have the patience of a, hmmmmm, well there is just no other way to say this - the patience of a Swanson, which is definitely not courtly or royal.
I notice you didn't threaten to beat the prince.
I learned something this weekend, too. I learned that a wineglass will float in a hot-tub.
If you missed Amazing Race, we have it on video. I know how hard it is to be out of the loop for the next week's show.
Go Erwin & Godwin!
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