Thursday, February 26, 2004
(4:51 AM) | Anonymous:
The Princess and the Pea
Earlier tonight I made the comment that my cat looked like "the princess and the pea" to my sister. This was because the cat was laying with a frumpled look even though she was on a stack of about 8 pillows in a chair. My sister didn't know the story, and besides the basics, neither did I. So, I had to refamilliarize myself with this beloved HC Anderson favorite, and may I now say - WTF?! (Which stands for "What The Flip Wilson?")To recap for you all..There's this prince sitting under this lily tree, and life is great. Then he decides since he is the perfect prince in the perfect land, all he needs is a real princess. Everything is going great..this sounds fine. But I believe the full effect of the alcohol hit Hans here, as out of nowhere comes the most screwed up paragraph ever:
"No matter where he traveled on the back of his beetle he would bump into a princess. His beetle, Jeffrey, would chirp whenever they saw a princess, but none of them seemed just right. Indeed, his land was full of princesses. They would come and live under the many lily trees that were known to be the most beautiful in the world."
For the record, the beetle, Jeffrey, never comes into play for the rest of the story. Sorry to go all Vonnegut there and end the suspense, but Hans Christian apparently just felt like the story was simply going a little bit too much in the way of "not totally on crack" so he decided to go off for a while. Why a beetle? Why not a freaking horse or even like..a small dog or something? And also..what princess have you ever known who would travel miles to camp out under a tree? We've all seen the camping episode of Just Married, or whatever that Jessica Simpson/Nick whoever show is called, right? The opening is standard fare, and then HC goes dropping this bombast of information out of nowhere, causing me to sit back and cry.
OH BUT WE'RE NOT DONE..
We go on..the prince returns back to his palace. His palace in the most perfect land in the world. What's the palace made of? No, not gold, silver, frankincense or myrrh..but TINS OF SPICE. I am instantly reminded of how at Fuddrucker's all the seperations are made out of cases of beer and stuff. What if you want the paprika to zest up your chicken? Do you have to sit back and make the moral choice of bland chicken or no left-wing to the house? This seems less than perfect. But apparently the tins are amazingly sturdy, as an ice storm comes tearing across the land a few days later. Not any ice storm..the worst ice storm ever to hit THE LAND. A MAGIC ICE STORM.
The prince here's knocking in the middle of the storm. He assumes it is the branches or the wind..knocking CONSTANTLY for an hour straight. Eventually he figures out that it isn't the freaking wind, it's Princess Kayla, knocking at his door. Which is why it sounded a bit like knocking. Again..an hour straight..to give away the end again, this girl is so bothered by a few peas under 20 matresses that she can't sleep, yet sitting in the middle of THE WORST ICE STORM EVER TO HIT THE LAND has no effect, except that she is "almost frozen in the cold"..note that she isn't "ENTIRELY RIPPED TO SHREDS BY THE SHARDS OF ICE!". This is because she's not just your every ordinary day princess who you bump into with your huge beetle while walking under the precious lily trees. No friends, this is KAYLA...a real princess. Not to be confused with Princess II, the horrible marketing error that alienated all of Real Princess' customers with it's wild new taste and look. Princess II, by the way, is now available as Diet Princess.
Anyway, the princess comes in and asks not for like..a hot bath..or a warm blanket or clean clothes..but hot milk with nutmeg sprinkled on the top. This is the sign of a real princess, friends.
The prince's mom instructs the prince to have the princess stay the night, thinking she could test if the girl to see if she truly was a real princess. This part is pretty normal, but you need to click on that link and listen to it for the guys "Fairy Queen" voice..simply genius. He makes a big deal out of the fact that the queen never told anyone she had three magic peas. But, really, when does that sort of thing come up in conversation? I mean..really..all they do is feel like rocks to princesses, so you really have a limited audience interested in such a thing. It's not like they can sprout wings and fly..and even if they do, everyone in the kingdom rides beetles, who can also sprout wings and fly. Simply NOT A BIG DEAL. But the king and prince at least should have really taken an interest in the pea thing, because then they might have found out that she's not just the queen, she's A FAIRY QUEEN with magical powers. Wow...the more you know indeed NBC.
At this point, Hans really goes off again. I mean..ever since springing Jeffrey on us, he's been okay as far as fairy tales go, but now again he jumps off the deep end in describing the fairy queen. To get anything done, the queen claps 6 TIMES. In a row. Try doing this straight. There's no magic in that. It's too long..there's no way to get a "magic-sounding" rhythm out of 6 times. And really, maybe this is why her husband never knew she was a fairy queen, having to clap so many times to do anything would get heck-a tedious. But, in order to get this amazingly grand scheme of STICKING SOME PEAS UNDER A MATTRESS, the queen utilizes her full white magic powers. She claps 6 times to open a portal that lead to downstairs in order to get her magic box. The box is magic because it contains MAGIC PEAS.
Really..I'm not sure why the peas are even magical. I mean..I thought the emphasis was on the fact that a real princess would be so used to a life of luxury that even 3 peas under 20 mattresses would upset her sleep. If it's simply a matter of the peas being magic and being some sort of divining rod to find out if the girl is telling the truth, I lose a lot of respect for the princess. But, I mean..these are MAGIC peas kept in a MAGIC box that is protected by a MAGIC spell..and I'm not sure why 3 out of a can wouldn't have worked just as well. Maybe there was a shortage, I don't know.
She has her servants take the matress off the bed so she can place the peas on the box springs, and then she has 20 mattresses of the finest quality placed on top of it. I'm not sure why 1 mattress makes a difference, especially with these being MAGIC peas..shouldn't they reveal the truth no matter what? I mean..if you stick some peas under my 1 mattress I couldn't tell. Heck, you could stick the peas directly under me and I'd have no idea. But..then..I did sleep on a bottlecap a few months back, which left this ring-worm looking deep scar on my leg up until a couple of weeks ago. Obviously I am not a real princess. A pretty pretty princess, yes. A real princess, no.
Oh..this is what I was talking about before I got sidetracked. HC kicks the drugs up and starts going off for paragraphs on end about the queen getting so rushed that she begins to glow and sprout wings and spread magic dust. But..really..she's not doing anything..she's telling servants to do it all. Even if she's telling them in the same speed as that Micro-Machines guy, you know the one who also part-timed as a teacher at Bayside High in Saved By The Bell..the wings and glowing and magic dust would all just be superfluous..they wouldn't help her diction or anything.
They try to put white sheets over the bed, but the queen CLAPS SIX TIMES, and they MAGICALLY know that this is a special guest, too good for white, so they went and got some rainbow sheets. When they returned they were ASTONISHED that the final preperations had already been made. Apparently when the queen sprouted wings, started glowing and leaving a trail of dust behind her, that was no big deal..but the fact she was able to put some sheets on the bed herself was absolutely amazing. Apparently, the queen must have been amazingly short, and that she could reach to the top of the mattresses was the great feat..or something. Anyways, the servants go get Kayla, and the queen has to "rush" out to avoid being seen. The queen locks her door and folds her wings and goes to sleep. Foldable wings. Nice.
Of course, you can all tell the story along with me from here. The queen and Princess Kayla come to breakfast the next morning. The Queen asks Kayla if she slept well..Kayla "thought three times before speaking"..which I have no clue what in the heck that even means...and then burst into tears. She admits she didn't sleep because it felt like there were three jagged rocks. The queen busts up laughing and CLAPS 6 TIMES before revealing it all - she is the Fairy Queen, She hid three MAGIC PEAS, and now she knows this princess is perfect and honest. What's more, The prince was hiding behind some curtains. Apparently he just had to hear what the princess' answer would be, but if he was present she wouldn't have the gall to answer. But..he had no clue his mom was a fairy, so how'd he know about the pea plot? And if this princess is so perfect and honest, why wouldn't she tell the truth if the prince was there? I think every good fantasy needs someone hiding behind a curtain, because it is the most obvious and hard to conceal hiding place ever, but certainly it must have a reason for being! I cannot accept it otherwise!
But, yeah..the two fall in love, live perfectly, and the ice storm goes away. However, all is not right even yet. In the epilogue, Hans Christ. Anderson tells us that if we ever happen to be in the neighborhood of the palace made of spice tins, we should go in and ask to see the room where the prince and princess fell in love. I should note now, in case I did not before, that when the prince first opens the door to the princess, it mentions that he is blown to the floor by his love for her. Again, when the prince comes out from behind the curtain it tells us he first fell in love with her when he opened the door. Yet, the epilogue says "you will find, on top of a silken pillow, the three magic peas." This would seem to indicate: A) There was some sort of midnight trist in the princess bedroom, which makes it the "very room where they fell in love", which is hard to believe since the princess would basically be making love on top of 3 jagged rocks..which would tear her back up and probably would ruin the spice tin floor..or B) In the entryway they have this silken pillow with the three MAGIC peas..right next to the door are these peas which once caused the queen to hid them in a MAGIC box, locked with a MAGIC spell, located in a MAGIC tavern only accesible through the queen's MAGIC portal. You'd think for the price those could fetch on ebay, they'd be snatched quicker than you could CLAP SIX TIMES.
That's the end of the story..the queen fairy becomes the Queen Fairy Mother, while Kayla becomes the new Queen Fairy, contrary to all the high school bullies who said I occupied that post.
