Once upon a clichéd opening phrase, there was a young girl who was tyrannized by her also overly-clichéd evil stepmother and her two ugly-as-well-as-clichéd stepsisters. This girl was named Cinderella, and, being a cliché as well, was perfect in every way. She was beautiful and kind and… okay, so she was perfect in every way except for the fact that she liked to socialize with small rodents.
Anyway, one day Cinderella was called up to her evil stepmother´s room. She stepped into the room, which was luxuriously decorated with silk and expensive paintings, etc. in order to further enforce the fact that being beautiful and kind and perfect in (almost) every way gets you nowhere in life. (Subliminal message! BE EVIL! BE EVIL! BE EVIL!)
“Cinderella!” her stepmother snapped in a sharp voice from her place in a big, comfy La-Z-Boy chair that was placed in front of a big screen TV.
“Yes, evil and overly-clichéd stepmother?” Cinderella replied.
“I want you to wash the windows, scrub the floors, and clean the stables with your TONGUE!” her evil stepmother barked.
Cinderella, being her sickeningly kind self, replied politely, “Please, stepmother, I would prefer not to. I really think it unfair that I should be forced to do all the chores myself...”
Her evil stepmother leaped up from her chair and glared at Cinderella. She got right up in her archetype-fairy-tale-heroin of a stepdaughter´s face and spoke in a dangerously low tone of voice.
“You will do what I tell you to do and clean this house till it spotless and you will not give me any lip about it, either!” she said, shaking the remote control she held in her right hand menacingly for added emphasis. Well, Cinderella had had almost enough of this sort of treatment. She threw her hands in the air and ran out the door.
“HELP, HELP, I´M BEING OPPRESSED!” she shouted as she flew out the front door of their manor. Passers-by on the street stopped what they were doing and stared at her.
“DO YOU SEE HER OPPRESSING ME?!” Cinderella yelled in a second attempt to get some help. Her stepmother stood in the doorway as our almost-perfect-in-every-way heroine shouted more things about her stepmother oppressing her. Seeing the stares from the total strangers who had gathered around her front yard, she crossed her eyes, pointed to her stepdaughter with one hand, and made a spiral around her ear with the other in the classic gesture of accused insanity.
Cinderella was down on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor of their gigantic banquet hall with a toothbrush. She sighed and sat back on her knees to rest for a minute when, partaking in yet another cliché, a group of rats came running out of a U-shaped hole in the baseboard. Cinderella gave them a smile that could have blinded. The rats blinked at her.
“Ah, it´s my best friends in the whole wide world come to help me with my chores!” Cinderella exclaimed in an overall almost-perfect manner.
The rats squeaked sarcastic remarks at each other and ran off to the kitchen in a huff of clichéd-ness to find some cheese.
Meanwhile, the evil stepmother sat in front of the fireplace. She stoked the fire and then threw in her family´s copy of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (Subliminal message! DON´T BURN YOUR MONTY PYTHON VIDEOS UNLESS YOU WANT TO END UP A MEAN OLD BITCH LIKE CINDERELLA´S STEPMOTHER! But be evil nevertheless.)
At that very moment, at the King´s palace, King Roland and his son were in an argument over weather the Prince should get married.
“But you must get married!” the King shouted.
“It´s the law, Prince!” the King´s chief advisor, who was standing nearby, said.
“How many times must I tell you?” the object of the scolding yelled, “I am no longer the Prince, I am the Sovereign Formerly Known as the Prince!”
“Whatever!” King Roland raged. “The point is, you must choose a wife! And therefore we are throwing a disco ball! Patsy!”
His chief advisor stepped forward. “Yes, sir?” he asked.
“I want you to extend an invitation to every eligible lady in the kingdom!”
“You´ve got mail!” the computer exclaimed in a happy tone. Cinderella´s evil stepsister, Clio, opened the single message that graced her inbox. It read:
Dear Madam(s),
You are cordially invited to a disco ball at the palace on the evening of April 21. (Author´s note: all you Star Wars fans should be able to figure out the reference made there…)
At the ball the Prince... er... the Sovereign Formerly Known as the Prince... will be choosing a wife. All eligible young women are to attend.
Sincerely,
Patsy, Chief Advisor to King Roland
Clio squealed with delight at this.
“Sister!” she called as she printed out the message. The other archetype stepsister, Chéri, (Author´s note: does that mean something in French or something? It sounds familiar but I just made it up for OTHER reasons… ::devious grin::) came bouncing into the room.
“Look!” Clio exclaimed. “We´re going to the ball!”
She said this just loud enough for Cinderella and her stepmother to overhear outside the door. Cinderella´s face brightened.
“Oh, stepmother, can I go to the ball? Please?” Cinderella pleaded.
“No!” her stepmother snapped.
On the night of the dance, Cinderella´s stepmother and stepsisters drove off to the palace, leaving Cinderella at home, standing in the yard. She sank to her knees and began to cry. Suddenly, a bright light filled the yard, and out of it emerged a figure. Cinderella looked up, sniffed, and wiped the tears out of her eyes. However, she started to cry again when the figure turned out to be Jim Carrey dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, green cargo shorts, combat boots, and a pink tutu, as seen in the mental hospital sequence of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. (Now you´re going to have to really visually imagine this part taking place, cause, I mean, it´s Jim Carrey!)
“Who... who are you?” Cinderella whimpered.
“Why, I´m your fairy godmother!” he replied, a cheesy grin plastered to his face. “Like the tutu?”
Cinderella looked doubtfully at him.
“SO!” he continued twirling across the yard as he spoke, “I hear you wanna go to the ball!”
Cinderella furrowed her eyebrows, but nodded.
“Well then! We´re just going to have to get you a way to go there now aren´t we?!” He pointed his finger at a pumpkin sitting in the yard and it turned into an orange Mustang convertible. The group of rats, at that moment, came scurrying into the yard. They stopped, looked at each other, and one of them squeaked the rat equivalent of, “Whoa, dude, this is messed up!”
Cinderella´s fairy godmother turned around and pointed at the mice, and they promptly turned into biscuits.
“Now, hurry along then!” he said to Cinderella, picking up a biscuit to munch on.
“But... I don´t have anything to wear!” Cinderella exclaimed.
“Oh, okay!” he said, spraying breadcrumbs all over the place. He pointed his finger at her and she was now wearing a sparkly silver sequined shirt and black Spandex™ bellbottoms. Her fairy godmother than held up an electrical socket cover.
“Here, stick your finger in this!” he said, grinning maniacally. She dubiously did as she was told, and, though she was electrocuted in the process, her brown hair ended up in a perfect afro. She looked perfect to go the disco ball, except that her feet were still bare. She pointed this out, and a pair of glass platform shoes promptly appeared on them.
She quickly thanked her fairy godmother and hopped in the convertible. As she sped off, her fairy godmother shouted after her.
“Remember, this´ll only last ‘til midnight!” he warned. “Okay, have a good time now, bye-bye then!”
He then disappeared in a puff of smoke instead of following along for a silly musical number, unlike SOME fairy godmothers I could mention... ::cough:: WHITNEY HOUSTON! ::cough::
Cinderella stood at the top of the palace ballroom stairs and surveyed the party. The entire floor had been converted into those multi-colored-flashy-light-up-tile-thingies and the Village People were playing.
So anyway, I´m just not going to bore you with the entire ball sequence because I know you don´t wanna hear about it. Keeping with this entire fairy tale thing, she (of course) met the Sovereign Formerly Known as the Prince and they danced and fell in love mushy mushy mushy. Yuck.
~*~*~*~*~
Okay, kiddies, right here I want to take the time to say that going to a disco and meeting some guy and dancing with him for one night is no basis for a long-term relationship. Even if he is a prince, he could be a prince and a psycho killer or something. Cinderella is being an ass and is not setting a good example. She doesn´t really know this guy. She was acquainted with him for what, like 3 hours? If you only know a guy for a total of 3 hours and he says he loves you, he is probably a psycho killer!
Admittedly, the only acquaintance the author has with Darth Maul is watching The Phantom Menace, but that´s different and I AM NOT A HYPOCRITE! LEAVE ME AND MY PROBLEMS ALONE! YOU DON´T KNOW ME! WHO ARE YOU TO SAY I´M CRAZY?! JUST BECAUSE YOU DON´T FIND DARTH MAUL ATTRACTIVE DOESN´T MEAN I MFFFGGHHH! ::A hand is clamped over the author´s mouth and she is dragged out of the story by a group of people with “Sunnydale Mental Hospital Security” printed on their shirts::
~*~*~*~*~
So, where was I? Ah, yes. They danced until midnight, and just as the Sovereign Formerly Known as the Prince was about to confess his undying love for this total stranger, the clock began to strike 12:00. Cinderella ran from the palace, and the Sovereign Formerly Known as the Prince chased her. However, when he arrived in the front of the palace, the only thing he found was a single glass platform shoe and some skid marks in the driveway.
The Sovereign Formerly Known as the Prince was heartbroken. He vowed, he solemnly swore, that he would not rest, he would not sleep for an instant, until the girl with the glass platform shoe was found.
But first he decided to get some donuts.
Cinderella did her chores the next day in an exceptionally pleasant mood. Her stepmother began to get suspicious, until she finally just came up and asked her.
“Did you go to the ball last night?” she said coldly.
“No, of course I didn´t!” she exclaimed. “How could I? Do you think my fairy godmother just showed up and gave me new clothes and an orange Mustang convertible and turned some rats into biscuits or something? Do you think I went to the ball and danced the night away with the Sovereign Formerly Known as the Prince?”
Her evil stepmother locked her in her room.
Later that afternoon, the Sovereign Formerly Known as the Prince showed up at the... hell, what´s Cinderella´s last name? Does she even have one? Err... the whatever Cinderella´s last name is residence. He carried with him the glass platform shoe. Now, you´d think if he had any brains whatsoever, he would recognize the woman he claimed t0 be in love with. However, this was not the case, as the only way he could tell if it was really her was by her shoe size. So he was trying the platform shoe on every lady in the kingdom. He was invited in, and tried it on Clio and Chéri, but it didn´t fit either. Just then, according to eyewitness reports, Cinderella burst through the door with a double-barrel shotgun, shot her evil stepmother and stepsisters, hopped on a motorcycle alongside some biker bum named “Fat Bubba” and rode off into the sunset.
The Sovereign Formerly Known as Prince remained single for the rest of his days and nobody really lived happily ever after.