The Girl Who Could have Cured Cancer But Didn't Cause She Was Too Pretty

I hate fairytales. This could be my bitter inner cat-lady coming out, but I’m getting to the point where I can’t stand them. 

 It’s all the same at the core: There’s the girl, who is always the most beautiful thing to ever grace the world with her dainty fart-free presence. 

And then there’s the Prince (or man who is as wealthy as a prince by the end) Who is always single and whose one criterion for marriage, is beauty. No, really, he asks to marry her on the spot.  Yeah, real freaking smart there buddy, have fun being married to that gorgeous serial-killing, taxidermist. Don’t worry, her pieces are real conversation starters.

 I mean, c’mon, dude!

Naturally, the girl fills this one requirement and you know, thank God there’s only one. The angelic little ditz is usually too stupid to do anything for herself.

Oh, help me! Come to my aid, fair prince!

I faint with womanly virtue, I fear that I will be taken and wronged sorely by

people who think I’m pretty but are themselves unattractive.

Sweet prince, what am I to do? Words are so long and difficult to understand!

 I’d better not do anything intelligent or remotely useful for the next twelve pages.

Okay, I’m being a little mean. Not all fairytale women are like that. Some are quite brilliant, you know, the wise nurse, the plain but intelligent sidekick. Too bad they don’t grow flowers with their voice or slay dragons with giant glistening doe eyes. Nope. Heaven forbid somebody look twice at that girl.

By the way, I’m not pulling an “all men are evil” card. Men, this isn’t your fault and you’re just as screwed as we are; anybody who isn’t a prince, or as wealthy as a prince, by the end of a fairytale, doesn’t get the girl. In fact, you’ll most likely be dismembered.

You can put anything into a fairytale formula. Anything.

Let me prove it; I give to you,

The Girl Who Could have Cured Cancer But Didn’t Because She Was Too Pretty

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a maiden who did not take much time to look into her family background and was therefore oblivious to the fact that she was daughter of a dead king. She was beautiful, because she was actually a princess. She was graceful and delicate unlike the maidens around her because, please, they weren’t princesses.

One day, as she was walking down to the river to get some water because the evil unattractive women told her to, she began to sing. The sound of her voice was lovelier than anything ever heard before, which was a real shocker because it’s not like there were singers or music or anything like that before her. The sound of her voice floated along the river down to where a prince was letting his horse take a drink of water.

Upon hearing her song, the prince said to his horse, “Horse, I’m going to marry whoever is singing that song. Now that I have heard it, I must hear it every day or I will pine away and die. I assume from the beautiful sound that it is a beautiful woman. You know that in all my days inside the royal palace or travelling over the land, that I’ve never seen one of those before. By the way, if it’s a dude, this never happened.” And with that, the prince mounted his noble steed, and rode toward where the maid, who was actually a princess, was figuring out how to get water into the round part of the jar.

Meanwhile, a nice, but unattractive, guy was sitting at the other end of the river, doing things that unattractive people do, like work. Upon hearing the maiden’s voice, he noticed that flowers started growing all about him. You see, the princess, of course, had a magical voice because a bunch of fairies didn't think it was enough that she was more beautiful than flowers. Now she could rub it in by making ‘em jump up out of the dirt.

The man thought to himself, “Hm, this magical sound might have useful purposes, like healing people or something.” The man was living in an area rife with plague and cancer, so the man asked for some time off, and traveled down the river.

By this time the princess had finally found out that water went in the top before it got in the bottom. As she filled the jar she began to sing to herself.

One day, my man of superior wealth and status shall come,

because obviously I’m too pretty to marry any of the kind men from the village.

They aren’t wealthy enough for me to ignore their ugliness.

I can’t wait until my wealthy or equally attractive man does come.

Water jars are hard to figure out, and so are brooms.

As she began to repeat this for the fifth time, the prince rode up. Upon seeing her face, he was instantly struck with everlasting love. It is to this day, uncurable.

He lept from his still moving horse, breaking his left femur in the process, and grasped the maiden in his arms. “Fair maiden, I love you! And if we ever part, I shall surely die!”

The maiden was about to scream, but when she saw the crown on the prince’s head (which was easy to do because one of its points was in her eye) she cried, “You are wealthy and attractive, so I love you too!”

The two were embracing, when the man finally got of the public transportation cart and got to where they were standing. “Pardon me, I don’t mean to interrupt, but, did one of you by chance sing a song that made flowers grow?”

The prince instantly rounded on the man, bolstered up on the power of love. “Hands off, knave! She is in my embrace and we deserve to be together since we’re both pretty!”

The man put up his hands, “Woah, man, it’s cool. I was just coming to see if the girl’s voice would heal people.”

“Well, it can’t, just go away.”

“Um, you okay buddy?”

The prince was quickly going into shock, but he nodded and said, “I’m fine,” just before keeling over at the man’s feet.

The princess gasped and looked particularly cute frightened. The man quickly checked the prince’s pulse and made a make-shift splint out of stick and strips of his own shirt. The princess noted that, while the man’s face was nothing to write stories over, the dude was cut. Like, ripped.

She blushed.

The man extended his hand to the princess, “I can’t save him, I think he’s in shock, but your voice could, I think. Please sing, it’s the only way we’ll still have a functioning government.”

The princess began to sing, she sang about how she met the prince, how he’d broken his femur, and how they’d love each other forever. So it was a pretty short song, but informative.

A rose shot up under the prince’s ear, cutting his neck with thorns. It then bent its head, filled with inexplicable dew, and dribbled a few drops over the cut. Instantly the prince was healed and leapt off the ground. The rose began to give instructions on the proper care for his wound, since the song was too short to have healed everything, but the prince accidentally stepped on it before it had a chance to get more than “Ok, now-” out. The prince clasped the princess in his arms and whispered into her ear how beautiful she was and how they would be married the very next day.

The man walked closer and looked into the girl’s face as she peered over the prince’s shoulder.

“Ma’am, I know I’m not wealthy, or attractive, but I’m here on behalf of a lot of people’s lives. I think you could do a lot of good with your voice. With a little work, you could probably single handedly cure the population. I can’t offer you anything other than the gratitude of a nation and my own undying loyalty. Would you please save us?”

The girl looked back into the man’s face, even though it was unattractive. He was kind and somehow something deep down inside of her responded to that and to his protectiveness of the people he cared for. And he was cut, did we say that?

The prince whispered in her ear, “I’ll buy you a pony from Ferrariland.”

The maiden kissed the prince, and together they rode off into the sunset. Their wedding was held without any questions a few days later. Not many people came, on account of being dead, but the ones with wheel chairs got a good view of the castle wall.

The prince and the maiden lived prettily until the end of their days.

. . . Which were few because the prince never did get that femur properly set and infection soon set in.

The End.

Fairytale love, it’s not real. Real love hurts and is good at the same time. It’s life long commitment to years filled with bad hair days, long hours, and at the same time, amazing rewards. I think people hate the idea of never being able to escape. Holding another heart and letting someone else hold yours. There's a lot of trust involved. Not to mention the idea of your person being a representation of yourself, and you being theirs. Do you want the burden of being a 24/7 billboard to your spouse's life choices?

We want the ability to cut the cord whenever we see fit, to cut and run with no damage. But then there’s the other shoe, we also don't want break someone else’s heart. Well, the good ones of us. 

What’s the solution? One is to keep a distance. Someone at arm’s length is an easy enemy. Someone curled around your soul is heart surgery with no anesthesia.

Or, it’s to plunge in anyway. To dive into an endless sea knowing that you’ll never be rid of the beauty or danger of the ocean you are swimming in.

I’m sure I’m off base with this, but I prefer love as an ocean to love as a pair of pretty people.

And hey, maybe out there, there is some man who can make a splint out of his shirt and just wants to make the world a better place with me.

The ripped abs thing too, abs never hurt anybody..... 

Chasing Cars with Huck Finn

You want to know how to torture someone? Put them in a car and say "Drive." That's how it seems anyway when you're carting four children, three under the age of eight.  When you, a free-range adult, get into a car, you see miles of open road just littered with opportunity. Try explaining that to a hyperactive three year old who has been sitting in the same spot for two solid hours. But, you know what? Even being a traveling veteran since the age of two, I still don't know what people are talking about when they bring up these pictures. My van was my steed; the gas stations my castles, and the mile markers? Target practice.

When I was knee high to nothing, our family often took long trips. Being in a large southern and extended family is a great thing, but the scattering of it was hard on the gas tank. Nevertheless, every summer found the Cromwell's fifteen passenger van in the nearest parking deck; at least the ones that cleared seven feet. I remember those trips better than I remember the places we were going to because for me at least, the real adventure was getting there.

Mothers are geniuses, don't let anybody tell you different, and mine was no exception. She knew those hours in an iron cage, albeit one as large as ours would be unbearable to our hardwired action-addicted brains. Believe me the Spanish Inquisition has nothing on fifteen hours of trees and billboards. But, she also knew that we could see our adventure and have it too, all from the safety of our seatbelt, something that she was constantly checking to make sure we had not evaded. We weren't in a van driving past dirt, we were caught in a sinking ship being chased by pirates, our Conestoga wagon was being peppered with arrows by Indians; we were atop a massive elephant as we battled the clock in a race to get home: we were anything and everything that we could read.

When we left our North Carolina home, we packed our van full of drinks, snacks, and books. Dad chucked the suitcases into the back where we had removed a seat to make room and mom squared off for departure with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. We knew that after a quick systems check and last minute potty run, mom would crack open the giant plastic folder of cassette tapes and solemnly pry out number one, and feed it into the player. We had our favorite readers, you get attached to stories in a different way when you hear it. I will always hear Huck Finn in one voice. Anything different is just wrong.

Now at twenty-one, I’ve counted all the books I listened to on those car trips. It’s upwards of 40. For thirteen years we listened together, until we were too old to agree on anything.

But every now and then, when I’m alone, I’ll fish out those old cassettes and listen to the whir of the tape rewinding, the click of the shutter, and the three seconds of static before the old familiar voice floats out.

“YOU don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.”

            I learned to love books in the back of a fifteen passenger, and I’ve never forgotten. 

Don't Cross the Streams

Friendship is a lot like coffee: easy to get addicted to, the good stuff will keep you up at night with hyper irresponsibility or studying, and it comes a variety of flavors. Yes, friendship is awesome and friends are awesome. However, like with coffee, two really great flavors do not always mix. Likewise, your friends will not always mix.

You’d think that because you’re in the middle there would be some amount of common ground between you and the people who consider you to be a decent human being.

But while your good friend Hazelnut is a lovely addition to your morning and good ole Lemonade is great to hang out with at lunch, a Hazelnut Lemonade brunch is Hell.

But surely Lemonade and Hazelnut know that, while they are a dysfunctional couple, they both love you. Surely, they’d behave if you ever decided to eat at 10:30 right?

..... No.

I was on a coffee run with these two, when Lemonade went citric acid on Hazelnut. For the sake of diplomacy, I’ll refrain from telling you what Lemonade was being a grade-A jerk over, and simply leave you with this: Lemonade can be witch with a capital B.

You see, while some people understand that they have differences and respect that. . .

Others people use those differences like giant sticks.

It seems some people have a fetish-like love for driving other people insane. Why? Because Lemonade thinks it’s hilarious when Hazelnut gets defensive and Hazelnut wishes that Lemonade would fall off a cliff and die. Differences. Sticks.

And we all have those friends right? The ones we know we will NEVER introduce to each other. I often have this dream, maybe a nightmare, where a selection of friends from each of my people groups are thrown  in a locked room where they have to figure out what's the common denominator them. AKA, me. Let me tell you, it’s hard to watch a Garlic-Hazelnut-Lemonade-Jack-Coffee-Pop-Tart smoothie being made.


 Let me break it down.

Garlic friends are dear to you and strong flavored; but they also drive off the other friends with their pungency. 

You have to be careful with them, too much is too much, but life is sad without Garlic.  

Hazelnut friends are off-beat and quirky; usually better taken with Coffee. 

You don’t hang out with them all the time, and after you do, you wonder why you don’t more often. Then you remember it’s Hazelnut.

Coffee friends are the ones who pick you up when you fall over, give you a kick in the pants when you need it, and leave you caffeine deprived in their absence.

They may be an acquired taste, but once you have it, there’s no letting go.

Jack are the I’m in a weird or crazy mood, friends. Get with them and you’re a completely different person, unrecognizable to your other friends.

 You aren’t sure why you like them, but you know you do. Huh, weird.

Lemonade is an easy group, good for a summer’s day, but you best not be mixing them with anything other than pop-tart. 

They’re nice, even fun, but the can be acidic, or sour, really not an everyday kind of deal unless you like that sort of thing.

Pop-tart friends, these are the ones that take you back to the time of mud-pies and bake tassels. 

They’re just fun, pure, innocent fun that doesn’t carry judgment or sadness. They’ll give you cavities though, and reality is the only filling that works.

All of these friends are good and the odd day comes when Garlic can take a stand and be coffee or Pop-tart takes on a Hazelnut flavor, and lemonade sloshes around in your glass laced with just a touch of Jack. But there are also the days where the smoothies of nightmares come to life and threaten to eat your soul.

I beg you, dear reader, to mix your friends carefully. Stir, DO NOT shake. 

Check back for a new post on Wednesday!