A Foray Into Children's Literature

There once was a little girl who wanted nothing more than to be a princess. She had seen princesses in her story books, and she just knew that, if she tried hard enough, she could grow up to be one.

Every day , she wore a pink, puffy dress and a crown. She had her mother put her hair in curlers, and when she shook her beautiful ringlets, she just knew she would one day be a princess.

The little girl played tea party and practiced sipping her cup with her pinkie pointing straight out.

She took tiny, dainty steps and curtsied to all the neighborhood pets. She looked so much like a princess that she sometimes fooled the mailman.

"Hello, princess!" the mailman would say, and the little girl did not tell him that she was just a regular girl-- for now.

On the first day of kindergarten, the little girl's mother told her that she could not wear her princess dress. She had to wear a school uniform, instead. The little girl cried and cried because the uniform was ugly.

That night, her daddy gave her a present for being brave for the first day of school. It was a golden necklace. The pendant was in the shape of a princess' crown!

"Now you can be a princess every day, even without your dress," he said. The little girl did not feel like crying anymore.

The girl wore that school uniform for twelve more years. Every day, she wore her princess necklace underneath.

When she was a senior in high school, the girl was voted prom queen. She wore the necklace with her beautiful pale, pink gown.

That night, the princess necklace got caught on the girl's dress as she urgently pulled the dress over her head. The necklace snapped. Later, she could not find it in the back of her boyfriend's car. She didn't feel very much like a princess just then, anyway.

The girl went to college and learned about the world. She heard about evil dictators and ineffectual monarchies. She definitely did NOT want to be a princess anymore.

For a time, the girl spent every waking moment with an older woman from class. The woman called her "princess", especially when they were lying in bed together in the morning. The girl did not like the nickname, and soon she grew tired of the woman, as well.

The girl met her husband in her third year at college. They had been dating for several months when he proposed. For their wedding, the girl wore a small tiara and an empire waist dress to hide her expanding belly.

The girl gave birth to a daughter who was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She spent the next two years completely in awe of this tiny person who looked just like her. She didn't notice her husband's increasing absences.

Just before their daughter's third birthday, the girl stumbled upon a series of e-mails that her husband had sent to someone he called "my queen". The e-mail address that they were sent to was not her own.

The girl's husband moved out of their house. She cried for several days, but she soon realized that she would not be unhappy forever. She still had her daughter, who was getting more beautiful every day.

Soon, the girl was hosting her daughter's third birthday party. In honor of the occasion, the girl's mother brought over a big box of toys that had once belonged to the girl herself, when she was a child.

They all opened the box together. It was full of building blocks, costumes, toy trains, tea sets, and all sorts of fun things! At the very bottom were a pink, puffy dress and a gold, plastic crown.

The girl nearly sobbed with relief when her daughter passed right over the princess clothes and began trotting a plastic pony around on the wooden floor. "Neigh, neigh," she said.

That night, the girl sneaked out the front door while everyone was asleep. She had the pink dress and the plastic crown bundled in her arms. She shoved the entire package deep down into the bottom of the garbage can while tears streamed down her cheeks.

The next morning, the girl lifted her daughter into her high chair and asked, "What would you like for breakfast, princess?" "I'm not a princess; I'm a cowgirl," responded the toddler. The girl smiled. "I'm glad for that," said the girl. "I think that a princess is a very silly thing to be."

The girl and her daughter ate cereal for breakfast and spent the rest of the morning playing with plastic ponies. That evening, they bought matching cowgirl hats from the tack shop down the street.