If Only This Was A Fairy Tale........

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who spent her days living it up with Prince Charming and three very adorable dwarfs. One winter afternoon, there were errands to be run, so the princess and the first dwarf went out for a while. Besides being devastatingly handsome, Prince Charming was ever helpful. He offered to start dinner for her.

After a short while, the lovely princess and her firstborn dwarf arrived back at the cottage. She was dismayed to find the Prince standing in the garage, looking stricken, and smoke billowing out of the cottage door. In the distance, she could hear the two smaller dwarfs crying. "My goodness!" said the princess. "Whatever is the matter?" The Prince looked at her sadly and replied, "There was a small fire."

Dwarf 1, whose worst fear just happened to be fire, immediately began screaming and running in circles. "Call 911!" he cried. "Daddy set the house on fire! Call 911!" He dashed into the backyard, seemingly in search of his two dwarf brothers.

The smaller dwarfs were there, and once they heard the biggest dwarf's screams, they began to cry loudly. They were frightened and inconsolable. The Princess looked around, bewildered, and went to the cottage kitchen.

The scene there was horrible. The walls were covered with soot. The vent, range top, and backsplash were black. And the floor.....oh, the floor! The floor was spattered with grease, decorated with two large scorched spots, and topped off with the blackest of black, perfectly round circle where a hot pan had been. The pan, which the Princess had just received for a Christmas gift, was laying in the middle of the mess, blackened and scorched.

Prince Charming said softly, "Grease fire. Fried potatoes. The flames were at least four feet high. I couldn't think......."

The Princess, calm and even, said, "Gather the children. Drive them into town and fetch them some dinner." The Prince obeyed without another word.

The Princess changed into the grubby clothes she used to wear when she was a mere maiden and went to work. She scrubbed the floor. She scrubbed the stove. She scrubbed the walls and the vent and the refrigerator and the table. Several hours and many buckets of water later, the room was at least functional again. However, the flooring could not be salvaged.

The Prince returned home and together they put the dwarfs to sleep in their little dwarf beds. The Prince (who somehow seemed not quite so charming) tried to apologize, but the Princess knew he felt terribly about what had happened. He had suffered burns on both of his hands, and knowing he and the dwarfs had been in danger was almost unbearable. She brushed aside his apologies, only insisting that he be banned from the cottage kitchen for all eternity.

The following day, Prince Charming tried to make it right by spending the better part of the afternoon washing the soot off all the walls.

The Princess liked her home to be neat and tidy, and so a grease fire and impending floor replacement greatly upset her sense of order. However, she had promised to live with the Prince happily ever after, 'til death did they part. So she grudgingly forgave him and cooked all meals for the family from that day forward.

The End.