Teel’s Tales

Cinderella
by Scott Teel

The young woman, whose name was Cinderella, as if you didn’t know yet, was forced to do all sorts of degrading, backbreaking, labor-intensive, difficult, horrendous, unfair chores, like doing the dishes. Floors were her specialty, but she wasn’t even too good at that, it seems, since the whole damn place was infested with talking, singing mice.

One day, the King’s vizier came to the large house to tell the family that a ball was going to take place at the King’s castle, and all of them were excited. First, he explained that a vizier is like, a secretary or something. “Wear something nice, okay?” the vizier said. “This isn’t dinner at the Sizzler, you know.”

The three Ugly…did I mention they were Ugly with a capital U? Well they were. The three Ugly, Evil stepsisters were so excited that they were invited and they might meet the Prince. “Maybe he’ll marry one of you,” said their Evil mother, “and you’ll be a queen, like your brother, Stacey. Don’t expect much in the sack, though, that family’s more inbred than a circus side show.”

Cinderella couldn’t wait to go either, but since she wasn’t going, she didn’t really have to wait. The three Evil stepsisters all went on the Atkins diet, polished their warts, tried to hammer in the buck teeth they’re always shown with, and got their dresses made while Cinderella cleaned the oven, which was not self-cleaning at the time.

The night of the ball came, and the Evil family members got ready to go to the ball. On their way out, the Evil stepmother said to Cinderella, “Get going on that floor. I want to be able to see my face in it when I get back, or at least that bald guy in the T-shirt.”

Unfortunately, the floors were stone, and none of the bricks would fit in Cinderella’s rock tumbler, so getting them to shine was going to take a whole lotta scrubbing. This was in the days before mops, so Cinderella had to get on her knees in her rags and scrub by hand, using the other hand to shoo away singing mice. Much like you have often probably wished for something out loud, Cinderella said, “I wish I could go to the ball,” but unlike for you, a Fairy Godmother appeared to Cinderella to grant her wish.

“Who are you?” asked Cinderella.

“I’m your Fairy Godmother,” said the Fairy Godmother.

“Oh. I didn’t know I had one.”

“Well, we tend to keep a low profile. Truth is, we’re just damn lazy, but you’re lucky, I feel like working tonight. Not the whole night, though, I guess maybe ‘til midnight.”

And with that, the Fairy Godmother turned a pumpkin into a coach, which wasn’t easy, you know, if you’ve ever tried to scoop out pumpkin guts, and turned some of the mice into horses and a coachman. Then the outfit; this girl was ready for a makeover. And with a flourish, Cinderella was wearing a beautiful dress, her hair was done, she was cleaned up, and she had on glass slippers.

“Glass?” she asked. “What kind of slipper is made of glass? How will I dance without cutting my feet?”

“Quit bitching,” her Fairy Godmother said. “And you’d better get going, I ain’t workin’ past midnight. You have ‘til twelve.”

So Cinderella went off to the ball, and boy, was she the belle of the ball. She made the Ugly, Evil stepsisters look like ice cream cones full of sauerkraut, and because she was clean, no one knew who she was. The Prince spotted her right away.

The Prince approached Cinderella, who was sipping daintily at her glass of rotgut.

“Uh…hi,” he said to her, looking down her cleavage, which the dress really showed off with a low dip.

“Hi,” she replied.

“So, um, some dance, huh? Um…do you come here a lot?”

“It’s your home.”

“Oh. Well.”

“Well.”

“So, here we are,” he said.

“Yep.”

“I’m not much of a dancer, really.” Stupid! Stupid! he thought, still looking at her cleavage. Just then the clock bonged the first bong of midnight. Cinderella gagged on her drink, and they both heard a loud CRACK! Her foot was bleeding. She flopped the slipper off and ran away, leaving blood all over.

“She hated me,” the Prince told his friend. “She actually ran away. Christ, that was so embarrassing. I don’t even know who she was. I’m going upstairs to sniff that slipper in my room.” The Prince had a foot and cleavage fetish. “I’m taking the tissues out of your room, I’m out.”

The next morning, the friend had an idea: why not find that woman the Prince liked? “What did she look like?” he asked the Prince.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I didn’t look at her face once.”

“The slipper!” yelled the friend, grabbing the slipper off the floor, “We’ll see who fits the slipper!”

Of course, since it was a huge kingdom, the slipper actually fit on thousands of women. It was really a pretty dumb idea. They realized this after a few hundred women and started home, but stopped at a home nearby to use the outhouse. It was none other than Cinderella’s house. The Prince zipped up and looked at the sisters. “Woof,” he thought. “Somebody busted the ugly stick in this place.” Suddenly, on the stairs, was a beautiful young woman, vaguely familiar, with a bandage around her foot.

“You there!” cried the Prince. “Were you at the ball last night?”

“Yes! I mean, no,” Cinderella said, looking at her stepmother.

“You were! We danced! How did you hurt your foot?” he inquired.

“Um, a talking mouse bit me,” she said.

The Prince ran to her and kissed her, and she swept into his arms. “Yes! It’s true!” she cried. “It was me last night!”

The Prince would have taken her away to a life of luxury and love right then and there, but Cinderella had cut her pinky toe so badly on the glass slipper that it was just hanging by a thread, and the Prince’s foot fetish was for nice feet, not mangled ones, so he decided to just forget it.

The Evil stepmother was so angry at Cinderella for going to the ball that she forced her to lick clean all the talking, singing mice, and Cinderella got the plague and died.

The Moral of the Story Is: Come on. Glass for footwear? Let’s think, here, people.

© 2005 Scott Teel