The Princess' Pea

The little, green worms that grow up to be moths are bravely jumping out of the branches of the oak trees. It's hard to see the actual worms, they disappearance the sky, but a gossamer web surrounds the limbs of the oak and marks their descent. They drop into the new grass shoots, plat, plat, plat... and the ones that aren't snatched up by the hens inch off to "take part in the butterfly process." (Miss USA 2004.) Except that they become hordes of annoying moths that swarm your face during the summer. As if the heat wasn't enough. So I stood outside at dusk today and listened to the raining worms while trying not to think about how many were dropping into my hair. Still makes my scalp creep a little... It's very calming, spring is, this year it is surprisingly beautiful;I always love spring but it takes my breath away when I'm surrounded by it's perfection. Enough about worms, cute and green with little black butts, the main object of this blog is to share some enlightenment I received concerning the princess and the pea. This fairy tale renders the young reader into a state of awe at the sensitive skin of the perfect princess and causes the more gullible ones to search the pantry for a legume of some sort so she can see if she, just maybe, is a princess too. Naturally this progresses in the more knowledgeable reader to be a silly story with absolutely no scientific backing written for the enjoyment of the little blue eyed, blonde girls of Northern Europe. However the truth is that the princess and the pea is a tale of hygiene. Nothing more, nothing less. I was banished upstairs from my little "peach medley" room to one of the kings for the night and immediately I knew there was something wrong. Upon throwing the coverlet back I noticed that the cream sheets were covered in black and brown grit as well as little yellow seeds that looked like POPCORN. Yes, this princess had some peas on her hands. A simple swiping of the sheets with my hands did not help, I could feel the grit against my legs as I slid in so I progressed to beating. Fluffing. Sticky Roller. And so on until 45 minutes later I wasn't sure if what I was feeling were little grits or my imagination. You see, this was the princess' problem as well. There was SOMETHING in her bed, she could feel it however it being a fairy tale they simply added more mattresses to hide the offending pea. Maybe they weren't so backwards as basically this is what I ended up doing as well. Austin was relieved of one of his blankets which, folded over, made a soft cocoon with no nasty crumbly bits, fit for any princess to cuddle into. It's late, the crickets are calling me to bed not literally, my ambien hasn't kicked in yet. Nite.