"Rumpa What?"
My version of Rumplestiltskin
Author's Note:
I feel Rumplestiltskin is a rather sucky story. The plot, while just as or even more developed than other fairy tales, is confusing and contradictory. The character portrayals are so completely unrealistic, even for a fairy tale, and that it just ruins the story. Here is my version of the tale. And no, I do not own any of the product placements. Oh, and forgive all the sarcasm.
Dedicated to my part-time muse—Thanks for the inspiration :)
"My daughter can sew 32 dresses in one day!"
"My daughter can knit 89 pairs of socks in an hour!"
"My daughter can make thousands of dollars a minute selling stock online!"
"Well, my daughter can spin straw in to gold!"
All the old geezers in the tavern grew silent and stared at the miller. Billy Bob was kinda getting old, but no one ever thought him as a complete crazy lunatic. As suddenly as the silence occurred, hysterical laughter filled the pub. Mad that he wasn't being taken seriously, the miller—Billy Bob Miller to be exact—left in a huff.
Far away, okay maybe not so far away, in his castle, the king guy of the village of the above mentioned old people, heard about the miller's boasting. His kingdom was, well, not exactly as economically sufficient as the king liked and thought this girl may be a quick fix for all his financial burdens.
"Bring her to me!" he shouted at his closest minion, "I will not eat another hot dog or box of Kraft macaroni and cheese again! When I am rich, I will have nothing but steak and Laughing Cow cheese."
"You what?" exclaimed the miller's daughter—Sue Anne if my memory serves me correctly ([i]Iron Chef[/i] joke, sorry), that night at dinner, "What kind of a crazy moron are you?"
"I just got in an argument with some of my friends at the tavern. They all said that their daughters were better than you are. I was only defending your pride."
Sue Anne glared at her father, remarking, "So you told all your drinking buddies that I spin straw into gold—Just great. What am I going to do now?"
"Well, its not like they believed me or anything."
Later, Sue Anne received an invitation to the palace (Palace? More like a plastic 16 foot—4.87 meter—copy of the Emerald City—purchased at EBay for $56.76, and some stacked up milk crates), to see the king. Slightly worried about the audience with her country's ('village' I think is a better word to describe it actually…) ruler, Sue Anne paced across the room of her domicile, thinking. Though she was not aware it was because of her father's bragging, she knew an invitation to the "palace" could not be good.
"Please tell me my father didn't forget to pay the Internet bill again," she muttered bitterly to no one in particular, while staring at the roof of the mill. She was always having to get her father out of one mess or another. She had a headache; she didn't want to face a problem today.
Because she had no choice, Sue Anne just took some Advil and headed toward the palace, wondering what her father screwed up. Because she failed her "horse and carriage driving" lessons and her father was too busy working at the mill, Sue Anne had to walk to the "castle."
"Good thing I decided not to wear my uncomfortable clunky shoes," she thought to herself.
It took almost the entire morning to get to the royal city, and upon entering the plastic green gates of the palace, Sue Anne was met by 6 royal guards and was immediately escorted to the main audience chamber of the king. Her father must have majorly screwed up this time, she thought.
Her escort left her as she walked up the red carpet (she could have sworn she saw the identical rug on sale at Target a couple weeks prior to this visit) and curtseyed before the king, who sat in his high backed recliner with a micowaved dinner beside him on a TV tray.
Putting his plastic fork on the tray, he looked at Sue Anne, and muttered, "You don't exactly dress like one who can spin straw into gold."
Upon hearing this, the blood drained from her face as the realization of just why she was invited to the castle set in. Her father was so going to pay for this. Unable to respond to the king's remarks, she remained silent.
"No matter," continued the king, "You will spin for me straw into gold. If these rumors I keep hearing are true, I will be the wealthiest king ever to grace this country. And I will marry you so I will have access to this magical gold supply whenever my treasury dwindles. That will also prevent you from sharing this magical talent with any of my rivals."
Rage filled Sue Anne's mind—This was exploitation! However, she could not protest. He was the king after all, and she really would like to keep her head neatly connected to her neck.
As if reading her thoughts, the king continued, "If these rumors prove false, you will face the consequences."
Then, his guards walked her to a room in the highest tower of his plastic palace, and opened the door. The green room was filled to the ceiling with straw. In the only place not covered by hay, there stood a spinning wheel. So depressed with her situation, Sue Anne entered the room and despairingly gazed at the giant pile of straw.
"If," the head of the guard sneered, "when we return tomorrow morning and this miracle is not fulfilled, you will hope your death is fast." And with that, he slammed and locked the giant green door.
After awhile of staring at the mounds of hay, Sue Anne sat in the floor of the room and muttered, "This sucketh."
She tried breaking the door down, but though it was plastic, it was the highest quality and would not budge. There were no windows and the ventilation shaft was not even big enough to shove her shoe in (and her feet aren't that big). She was kinda stuck there and kinda screwed.
Grasping a handful of hay, Sue Anne wandered to the corner of the room and sat beside the spinning wheel. Before she could place her foot on the pedal, however, a voice rang out in the room.
"I can spin all this hay for you," the voice replied, as a man walked from behind a mound of straw.
Sue Anne stared at the odd man and hotly retorted, "I am quite capable of spinning this on my own." And with that, proceed to in fact spin the straw into a fine chain of gold. She picked up the chain and threw it at the guy's feet, quite proud of herself. "My father may be annoying, obnoxious and inconsiderate but he is no lunatic."
The man's mouth hung open and his eyes grew big at this revelation. "Where did you learn how to do that?" he managed to whisper.
"An online college class."
The weird magical guy didn't leave, but instead stared amazingly at Sue Anne.
"So are you going to spin all this hay into gold," he asked her.
"There is not much else I can do," she replied, "I really don't feel like dying tomorrow morning."
"Yeah, but then you would marry the king," commented the guy, wrinkling his nose in mock disgust, "He isn't exactly the best looking guy in the world."
"Hey!" she responded hotly, "There is more to a person then looks!"
"Yeah, personality and ambitions," the man said thoughtfully, "You really want to marry a guy who would have killed you had you failed? Doesn't seem too kind to me..."
Sue Anne hadn't thought of that. However, she was kinda stuck. Marrying the king, while not exactly ideal, was better than death… maybe.
"Anyway," the guy continued, "Think of all the economic damages this gold would create. It would flood the market and the value of all gold would plummet. We are talking a complete economic collapse here. Are you ready to take responsibility for that?!"
"You would rather have me die then?" she asked, curious.
"Hey, to preserve the masses," commented seriously, then laughingly added, "Just think, the king also would be stuck eating frozen TV dinners forever then."
"Oh you suck!" she laughed picturing the king eating boxed Hamburger Helper, and threw straw at the man, then turned serious. "But I'll miss the fun! Why did this have to happen to me of all people? It's not fair!"
"You are such a pathetic whiner," the guy replied, only half serious.
"Hey!" she exclaimed, insulted, "You aren't the one about to die to preserve economic stability!"
"That is true," he stated, turning solemn. Then he got an idea. "You can run away with me," he suggested, totally perking up.
"What?" Sue Anne asked, aghast, "I don't even know your name." She then looked around the room, "Anyways, we have no way out."
"It's Rumplestiltskin," he replied, then snapped his fingers and they were out of the castle grounds and standing on a vast field.
"Rumpa what?" asked Sue Anne.
He repeated his name and after grabbing her hand, ran across the field away far from the castle and into the sunset.
The next morning, not only did the guards find a whole lot of hay, they couldn't find the girl anywhere. The king to say the least was less than thrilled. I hear he threw his entire microwaved lasagna at his guardsmen and muttered for hours about how he was so close to becoming the greatest king ever after finding this supposed enchanted maiden, but alas is still having to buy hot dogs and Rice-A-Roni whenever he goes grocery shopping. I also have heard a rumor that his cousin wants to have him committed due to these depressed bouts of incoherent ramblings of nonsense.
Rumplestiltskin and Sue Anne lived happily ever after, while the king is now stuck eating delivery pizza in a padded white room. And not surprisingly, no one believes Billy Bob when he tells the tale of how his daughter ran away with some sort of wizard guy. This was the same guy boasted that his daughter could spin straw into gold.
Who believes crap like that?
*laughs*
The End
