My favorite fairy tale has always been Sleeping Beauty, I loved every bit of it, well everything except the molestation scene at the end.
What? You do not know what I am talking about. Well, let's see, the princess (who may I remind you has just turned 16) has a spell put on her rendering her unconscious - the prince brakes into the castle and finds the young princess unconscious on the bed so what does he do? He kisses her, hmmmm... you seriously never questioned that?
Once upon a time in a land called San Francisco a young and troubled girl named Kathy decided that working at the local pizza joint simply wasn't paying her bills. She hit the bus and ventured into a place called North Beach, the Italian section of San Francisco, also known as the Red Light District.
She was a pretty girl and had always been able to use her looks to get what she wanted but Kathy wasn't the sharpest tool in the box. Kathy didn't really mind being somewhat simple though, in fact she had a friend that was quite intelligent and Kathy noticed that, that friend was almost never happy - Kathy on the other hand was almost always happy and she figured it must have something to do with the fact that she rarely found herself deep in thought.
It did not take Kathy too long to find a job in this land of North Beach, in fact finding a job had been as simple as apple pie (which in one of her rare moments of deep thought Kathy decided was a very silly thing to say since she had tried to bake an apple pie once and it had not gone well at all - it certainly was not simple).
The job that Kathy found was wonderful. She did not have to do any math and there were no uniform and hardly any rules at all. She worked with twenty four other young girls, all of whom were just as pretty as she was, and often she got to smoke pot while she was working. Try as she might Kathy could not find the downside to her new job.
There was however a catch to Kathy's new job. The customers were not required to pay her and Kathy never, ever got paid by her boss.
She came in every night and did what was asked of her. She looked at the schedule that was posted on the wall on Sunday's and always came in on the days that her named was marked down for. She was polite to all of the customers and she did not start fights with the other girls. She wore the appropriate outfits and said all sorts of funny things to the people who came in and sometimes those people gave her money. Sometimes they tried to touch her under her clothes as well.
They would tell her how pretty she was, they would tell her how much they enjoyed talking with her, some of them even invited Kathy to spend time with them when she was not at work but Kathy did not think that was a very good idea. Some times Kathy was so tired when she got home from her new job that she would sleep until one or two in the afternoon the next day. But even has hard as she worked and as good as she was at her job sometimes Kathy would come home with only forty or fifty dollars.
One day Kathy asked one of the other girls at work why none of the girls got paychecks for doing their jobs. The girl who Kathy asked did not have an answer for her though so Kathy asked another girl but she too had no answer and she was very busy sniffing the table in front of her. Kathy decided that she was going to get to the bottom of this mystery so she went up to the very big man who also worked at her job - it was his job to stand at the door and look big and sometimes it was also his job to take out the trash.
"Big Joe" Kathy asked "Why doesn't anybody get paid to work here"?
"I get paid to work here" said Big Joe.
Well, that is rather odd Kathy thought. It was odd because every night when Kathy left work she gave Big Joe some of the money that she had made being nice to the customers - Big Joe didn't have to be nice to the customers?
So Kathy decided she would ask someone else.
"Panther" Kathy asked the tattooed man who sat in the big booth in the back and pushed buttons on his computer to make the songs play, "Why doesn't everyone who works here get a paycheck"?
"I don't know, I get a paycheck" said Panther.
Well, that was very, very strange Kathy thought. I mean Panther did have a very hard job, pushing buttons, but at the end of the night Kathy had to give Panther some of the money that the customers gave to her and Panther never had to talk to the customers (and they certainly never tried to touch him under his clothes).
So Kathy figured she better ask someone else.
"Tony" Kathy asked the bartender. "Do the customers tip you when you make them drinks"?
"Yes" Tony said.
"Tony" Kathy asked?
"Yes" Tony replied.
"Do you get a paycheck for working here?"
"Yes" Tony replied. Kathy could feel her face turn hot and red and she was pretty sure she wasn't as happy as she usually was.
Kathy decided to ask someone else.
"Robbie" Kathy asked the man who parked the cars for all of the customers and the girls who drove to work. "Why doesn't everyone who works here get a paycheck"?
"I get a paycheck" Robbie said.
WHAT!! Now Kathy was extremely confused because whenever she got a ride home with one of the girls who drove their car she ALWAYS gave Robbie some of the money that the customers gave to her AND she knew for a fact that many of those customers also gave Robbie money when he parked their cars!!
Kathy marched inside and went into the office where the manager Ian worked.
"Ian, why is it that everyone who works here gets a paycheck except the girls" Kathy demanded, stomping her very pretty foot.
"Because you are independent contractors", Ian said.
"What", Kathy demanded!
"You are independent contractors" Ian said without looking up from his sudoku game. "That is why you pay a fee to work here. Now why don't you stop asking questions and go back to work" Ian said. Never once looking up from his game.
Kathy went home that night and was very, very upset. She was not sure why but she was almost positive that it wasn't fair that everyone at work except the girls was getting a paycheck. Suddenly Kathy knew what it felt like to be her friend who was always thinking and Kathy did not like it one little bit.
Just in case Kathy wasn't already feeling pretty terrible her landlord had called and reminded her that her rent was late. Well, Kathy thought, maybe if I got a paycheck my rent wouldn't be late!
The next night at work Kathy tried to talk to the other girls about the paycheck situation. The girls were interested but they didn't really stay interested that long. There were customers to talk to and drinks to drink.
Kathy was feeling pretty sad by the end of the night, when John, a customer that always liked to come in and see Kathy walked up behind her. For a long time John had been telling Kathy that he could give her more money if she was just a little bit nicer to him. Kathy had always said no when John would ask her about the two of them having an arrangement but tonight Kathy was sad and tired and worried about her rent so she decided she was going to be nicer to John.
Over time John kept up his end of the bargain, and after a while it became easier and easier for Kathy to be nice to him. Eventually Kathy stopped being angry about the paychecks. John gave her enough money to pay her rent, to get a car and eventually to do lots of other stuff. If someone had asked Kathy if her relationship with John was a good one, Kathy would have said yes. It was great compared to being homeless and hungry.
Ten years went by and one night a girl named Lucy who had been working with Kathy for a few weeks asked Kathy why none of the girls at work got paychecks? Kathy said that she didn't know and that she was very busy sniffing the table in front of her so Lucy would have to go and ask someone else.
The End.
I have no doubt that Sleeping Beauty was pretty happy that the spell that had been placed on her had been broken. I do wonder, however, if it ever occurred to her that there may have been another way to break it. Something other then a kiss from a strange prince (I am talking the original story here not the version with Prince Philip and his jealous horse).
I also wonder if Sleeping Beauty really liked the prince that woke her up or if maybe she felt like she was somewhat obligated to stay with him considering he had been crucial to breaking the spell that had imprisoned her (a spell that was by no means brought upon her by anything she had done but instead had been brought about by her parents bad manners and the evil fairies own feelings of insecurity). It is kind of funny to see what someone will choose when given two lousy options, I'm just sayin'.
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