It's fairy tale week again (from my book, "Fishducky's Fables")!!
In a far away, long
ago kingdom, Cinderella (a fairy tale name meaning “Beautiful face but big
feet”) lived happily with her mother and father until her mother died.
Cinderella's father married a cold, cruel
woman who had two daughters, Pigface and the equally lovely Wartynose. When her father died, Cinderella's wicked
stepmother turned her into a virtual servant in her own house.
Meanwhile, across
town in the castle, the king felt that his son, the prince, should find a
suitable bride and provide him with a required number of grandchildren. He invited every eligible maiden in the
kingdom to a fancy dress ball, where his son would be able to choose his bride.
Cinderella had no suitable party dress for a ball, but her friends the mice and
the birds lent a hand in making her one from fabric scraps they were able to
find. True, the style was lovely and the
fit perfect, but the dress was unwearable due to the large number of bird
droppings on it. Piggy, Warty and Mommy
Dearest each selected a designer gown from their large closets, had Cindy iron
them, then called a cab and went to the ball.
Cindy was left at home alone to do her chores and she thought to
herself, “This sucks!”
It was at this time
that a creature appeared surrounded by a ball of stars. When Cindy’s transition lenses adjusted to
the sudden brightness, she saw that it was a fairy godmother. Never having seen her before, Cindy assumed
that she was there to visit her stepmother and told her that Mommy Dearest and
the girls had gone to the ball. Her
fairy godmother said, “Who cares? I’m
here to see you! Do you want to go to
the ball, too?” Cindy said that she
would love to go, but that she hadn’t a thing to wear. Her godmother asked, “Size 4, right?” and went
back into the ball of stars, singing “Cinderelly. Cinderelly, Comb your hair
and wash your belly”. She came out with
a gorgeous floor length gown and a pair of glass Jimmy Choo slippers to die
for. Cindy put on the outfit and felt
like a princess, but then became sad again.
She said, “I don’t have cab fare to get me to the ball.” Her fairy godmother said that news didn’t
exactly come as a surprise and produced a Rolls Royce with a uniformed
chauffeur. She said, “Knock ‘em dead,
kiddo! I promised the prop department
I’d get this stuff back to them around midnight, so come home early,” and she
disappeared.
Cindy went to the
ball and had a marvelous time. Nobody
recognized her, because she had also washed her face, and she danced almost
every dance with the prince. She didn’t
realize how late it was getting and when she heard the clock begin to strike
twelve, she ran out of the castle. She
stumbled on the stairs and one of her size 16 EEEE glass slippers fell off. A guard found it later and brought it to the
prince, who was frantic because Cindy had left so suddenly. He asked, “Sire, shall we search the kingdom
for the damsel whose foot fits this shoe?”
The prince said, “Forget it. I
must have been drunk. Who would marry a
woman with feet this size? Our kids
would look like they were wearing snowshoes.
Just dump it.”
Cindy went home and
thanked her fairy godmother for a lovely evening. A couple of years later
she said goodbye to Mommy Dearest, Piggy and Warty and moved to the Pacific
Northwest where she discovered a tribe of Sasquatch (also known as Bigfoot), was made their queen and lived happily ever after.