I volunteered to babysit my niece again while the ladies were out shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. We watched a couple movies for what seems like the hundredth time (what is it with kids and repetition anyways?) and we happened to watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (again).
After the credits (kids seem to really like the credits), my niece looked up at me with her beautiful blue eyes and asked me in that cute little girl voice “Uncle Alex, what happened to Snow White?” I responded cautiously: “Uhhhh, what do you mean dear?”
“What happened to Snow White after the prince saved her? Did she live happily ever after?” Turns out I have some punk in her kindergarten class to thank for teaching her the life lesson that things don’t always turn out happily ever after. Eeeks. I was in the classic quandary – do I tell the truth or should I make something up?
Now, I’ve heard my sister spin a decent tale in her many years of parenting, but her pinhead husband (puh-lease don’t tell him I said that) has some “thing” about the importance of telling the truth to children, regardless of their age. Well, I figure I better not sugarcoat things, so I went ahead and told her what happened…
Once upon a time… our favorite Princess Councilmember Darling Dottie and Prince Joe Koester lived in the beautiful Golden Palace. It turns out that after Prince Joe saved Darling Dottie from her slumber, they were able to gather up Doc Riddler and his dwarfs and run off the vain and wicked Perilous Patty. Their subjects were joyous and their happy reign began.
Perilous Patty (with her Magic Mirror Kneemiller) was banished to Ghoulish Glenn Jamboretz’s nasty, rundown duck blind in the hundred year floodplain. All of the bulldozers digging (practically 24/7) and bright lights glaring (so the bulldozers could see at night) in the floodplain gave Magic Mirror Kneemiller migraines and he could no longer answer Perilous Patty’s questions. Whatever was the old hag to do?
After selling their cottage in the floodplain for a huge profit (after all, the land was in high demand now), Doc Riddler and the dwarfs moved into the Golden Palace with Darling Dottie and Prince Joe, and they began the difficult task of straightening things out after Perilous Patty’s reign of terror. Apparently Perilous Patty had entered into some questionable business dealings on behalf of her subjects. Perilous Patty had been signing contracts and spending down the gold in the city’s coffers.
In the meantime, Perilous Patty summoned her dark knights (Krazy Ken and Terrible Tom) and they began to plot and plan with Ghoulish Glenn. Perilous Patty wanted Darling Dottie out of her palace.
Just as Doc Riddler and his loyal crew began to unravel her treacherous deeds…Perilous Patty returned to the Golden Palace with Krazy Ken and Terrible Tom. They had apparently found a way to punish Darling Dottie – they had schemed to spend their ill-gotten wealth on a recall effort to oust Darling Dottie from the Golden Palace.
Perilous Patty’s band of marauders, bandits and thieves (courtesy of Ghoulish Glenn) pounced on Darling Dottie’s kingdom from neighboring lands to collect a bounty for each subject they could terrorize into signing the petition to recall Darling Dottie.
What crime did Darling Dottie commit, you might ask? No one seems to know. Some subjects cited fireworks and such, but apparently the reason is as old as time itself. Perilous Patty is green with envy over Darling Dottie and the loyal Fabulous Five and, and she will stop at nothing to see them gone. Perhaps Perilous Patty wants Darling Dottie’s seat on the dais, so she has more face time on T.V. (not that it would be a good thing in her case). Just for good measure, Perilous Patty and her dark knights have gone after Sneezy Mark Brown as well…all in a coordinated effort to end Doc Riddler’s strong and wise leadership of the Council.
With her subjects in peril, Darling Dottie has held her head high and with the help of Doc Riddler, Prince Joe and Happy John Gieseke, she continues to fight the good fight against the forces of evil. It remains to be seen whether Perilous Patty will take over control of the Golden Palace and take up her favorite pastime: fleecing the city’s coffers.
Doc Riddler has studied the matter thoroughly and has raised his concerns before the appropriate authorities. It appears to Doc Riddler that some of those bandits were so greedy to collect the bounty; they may have fraudulently added signatures to the petitions. Hopefully, Doc Riddler will prevail in preventing this onslaught against Darling Dottie, but their subjects are certainly worried.
Grumpy Bob Hoepfner is waiting in the weeds to take over Doc Riddler’s position as Council President. The question will revolve around whether the rest of Perilous Patty’s unholy alliance: Magic Mirror Kneemiller, Dopey Larry Muench (a mute for goodness sake), Bashful Jerry Reese and Sleepy Mike Weller will support him if Perilous Patty is successful in her palace coup. Methinks not, dear reader, as this motley crew is incapable of solidarity – something that drives Perilous Patty positively batty.
Here’s where it gets a bit tricky. Children, like all of us, need hope and the belief that fundamentally, good will triumph over evil in the end. Fairy tales are supposed to be about hope and imagination. So I thought I’d better explain to my beautiful, innocent little niece that sometimes things don’t work out perfectly, but the wonderful thing about a fairy tale is that we know no matter what Perilous Patty throws her way, Darling Dottie will live happily ever after…
