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A Sassy Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess. She lived in a grand palace with her parents, the queen and king, and had an army of servants to do her bidding. Her life was perfect.

But this isn’t her story.

This is the story of an ordinary girl in the nearby village, who wished she were a princess who never had to do chores. She didn’t really like housekeeping, and she hated gardening. But, luckily for her, she had a mother who was good at both, and taught her well. And so, despite her lazy ways, she learned to do things like making bread and canning fruit. She grumbled when she had to mow the lawn, and she screamed when grasshoppers flew out at her in the bean patch. But she learned.

Eventually, the girl (we’ll call her…Sassy) decided to leave her parents and gain an education. Sassy attended a university (for this was a very progressive kingdom), and learned new things. Things like, you don’t have to clean, really, until inspection day. And if you don’t take early classes, you can sleep in.

Sassy enjoyed this freedom from care and responsibility. She mixed her colors and her whites. She cooked from boxes and cans. She didn’t have to think of anyone but herself, and for the first time in her life, she was a sort of princess. A poor princess, to be sure, who made minimum wage working in the university’s student government offices. But a princess none the less.

Then, one day, everything changed. She met a handsome prince, who carried her off on his fiery steed to his two-bedroom apartment south of campus. And there, they settled into married bliss. Until the prince turned to Sassy and asked, “What’s for dinner?”

Dinner?

Sassy wasn’t hungry. Sassy couldn’t see the point of making a meal she didn’t want to eat. Sassy’s prince, however, was a meat-and-potatoes man, and Sassy had to adapt. Sassy made steak. Sassy gained weight.

Sassy and her prince bought a cottage in another village. They planted a vegetable garden. They picked raspberries in the summer, and shoveled the driveway in the winter. The carefree days of her college years were gone. Sassy was once again drawn into domestic drudgery.

Sassy had a baby. Sassy quit her job. Sassy gained weight.

Sassy had more babies. Sassy never saw the bottom of the laundry basket or the top of the fridge. Sassy’s cottage was too small, and didn’t have enough storage space, so the family bought a manor house in a neighboring kingdom.

The new house had automatic sprinklers, and a laundry room by the bedrooms, and a riding lawn mower. It also had more carpets to vacuum, more flower beds to weed, more bathrooms to scrub, and large expanses of white painted walls that called to the inner artists of Sassy’s children.

Sassy discovered Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. Sassy hid all the Sharpies. Sassy’s kids found them. Sassy cried. A lot.

Never fear, gentle reader. This fairy tale has a happy ending. Sassy eventually threw out her diaper pail and gave away the baby swing. She started sleeping at night and occasionally got out of the house without any kids attached. She is now passing down the knowledge and skills her mother passed to her, as proof that you don’t have to like it to know how to do it. In the process, she’s learning to like it.

Sassy and her family are currently living happily ever after.