Someday My Prince Will Come

By Arline Kaplan ©1996 (All Rights Reserved)

When I was growing up, the myth of the heroic prince rescuing the fair maiden was pervasive, found not only in "Snow White" and "Sleeping Beauty" but also in romance novels, televised detective stories, and even an occasional comic book

Unfortunately, in my life’s fairy tale, the casting office made some princely mistakes.

-Prince #1 professed adoration for me, but ended up dating my best girlfriend.
-Prince #2 wrote me sonnets, while I chopped down the weed-filled jungle in the backyard.
-Prince #3 invited me out for a pizza dinner and then pronounced that I was dessert.
-Prince #4, after a year of dating, revealed he was never divorced and asked for help in filling out his divorce papers.
-Prince #5 could have doubled for Harry Houdini, disappearing into the ethers whenever things didn’t go his way.
-Prince #6 arrived for a date confessing that he was so nervous, he had taken "just one drink for courage"; later, as he started to drive the car onto a freeway off-ramp, I began to doubt his veracity.
Of course, in balance, I wasn’t the perfect Snow White either.
-In high school, I told Prince N that I had to baby-sit my kid brother when I really had a blind date with a "hunk," misleadingly described by my matchmaking cousin.
-Enraged when Prince B took out someone else after dating me exclusively for several months, I took a book he had loaned me and with great relish tore it to shreds, page-by-page. Sheepishly, I later bought him another book.
-Prince S told me he loved me as a best friend, but I kept trying to convince him how misguided he was and that there really was something more.
-Prince G held and comforted me while I cried about another man, but I never thanked him for his kindness.
-I chided Prince B for being unromantic, because he never brought me flowers, not realizing he had given me an endless bouquet by planting a myriad of flowers in my front yard.

Obviously, all of us fair maidens and princes lapse into frogdom occasionally. But when showered with love and compassion and a few hugs and kisses, we shape-change into our more regal form.


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