This Castle’s A Mess: A Real Life Fairy Tale


Once upon a time, a queen and her royal family lived in a modest castle which she lovingly referred to as her “Little House on the Loop.” After a weekend of attempting to experiment in the alchemy known as “home canning” the Queen realized a sad, horrifying fact. The castle was trashed. Because the Queen and King were from a lowly kingdom near Le Ghetto (from the French), they could ill afford servants–nary a lady in waiting was to be found, which was fine, because they had those before and nobody could ever figure out what they were waiting for. For this and other numberless atrocities, the royal Auntie blamed a faraway king named Obama.

In the tradition of oppression, they had several children, partially because of their love for one another and partially for the household help they would bring.

As the saying goes, “Ain’t nobody happy if the Queen’s not happy.” When the Queen mistakenly confused her castle with the set of Hoarders: Buried Alive, she took action. Her first instinct was to recruit the children. After all, they lived in relative bliss and should be more than happy to scrub a royal commode once in a while.

To her great surprise and shock, the royal children were not overtly fond of household chores, and despite the untrue legend that pretty princesses received unsolicited help from forest animals, the Queen tried to charm her handsome prince into helping. This also was a failure. Although the King was a good and righteous leader, he had a habit of disappearing into the Royal Mancave when the dirty dishes piled sky high, pretending to be deaf to the Queen’s gentle requests.

The last idea the Queen had was to institute the black arts of magic. However, no wizards, witches or even useless fairies seemed to be on hand–neither by royal decree, Facebook announcement, nor even a royal Tweet could summon them. So the good Queen, virtuous and beautiful, was left alone once again to wash the royal dishes caked with leftover enchiladas and hours-old cereal remains.

And oh, the kingdom would pay for her angst. Between her ruby red lips the Queen made a hideous oath: the royal television would forever be parked on the Food Channel or Lifetime, cycling through endless reruns of The Next Food Network Star and Sister Wives, and oh, the prince and princesses would protest through the gnashing of teeth.

And the sun would once again set upon the mighty Queendom after all.

The End.