Rumpelstiltskin
Once upon a time, a miller told the King that his daughter spunstraw into gold. The miller sold the daughter to the King
to pay the daughter's cellphone bill and laughed at the King's stupidity.
The miller will not be referenced again in this poem.
The King locked his new acquisition into a room full of straw
with a sewing wheel and told her to turn it all into gold
or be executed. The girl didn't seem bothered so he went further
and threatened to cut her off from Facebook and texting.
Like many of us, she had forgotten how to live without the internet.
The anxiety of separation spurred her to the challenge.
She texted 411 and a short man came with a magic sewing machine
and a potbelly that screamed, "Baby eater."
He turned all the straw into gold in exchange for her necklace.
Fairy tales always happen in threes and the King knew breaking form
would lead to a fate worse than death: innovation.
The idea scared him, so he put her back in the room with more straw.
The short man came and sewed for her again in exchange
for a fifteen-dollar ring from Delia's, home of the cheapest jewelry
in all the land. If you want to impress your girlfriend,
put something from Delia's in a Tiffany's box.
The next night, the King locked her away and the short man appeared
but this time she had nothing to trade for the gold made of straw.
She might have pocketed some straw from the previous nights
but Becky had called Sarah a bitch and everyone had to know.
The short man said he would do it for her first-born child—
fair market price for using 411—
and she was on the pill so it wouldn't be anytime soon.
She accepted the deal. Babies just cry a lot anyways.
The King was so impressed that she actually turned straw into gold
(and he knew how the pill worked ninety-nine percent of the time
when used as directed) that he married her and gave her everything she wanted
along with a beautifully written and loving pre-nup.
Unfortunately for the King, and as the reader has probably realized,
the miller's daughter was a twit. Accordingly, she forgot to take the pill
and nine and half months after their wedding, they had a baby.
The 411 dwarf snuck into her private birthing chamber that night.
The Queen was addled with a massive amount of painkillers.
The miller, there to see his grandchild, tried to pay the opt-out
(Remember when I said the miller was gone? I lied.)
But even Kings can't afford that kind of fee these days.
The dwarf took the baby and said the queen could have it back
if in three days she could guess his name. It was a very foolish deal
for him to make because she was apt to put bureaucracy in motion.
And that's just what she did.
She filed a Baby Trafficking Accident Report that went to the King and he filed an injunction
with his guards and the Head Guard cross-checked it with the King's Liason who took
the Baby Trafficking Accident Report to the King who promptly got in the line labeled
"These Types of Incidents" and a short three hours later he was sent to a special line
reserved for Crimes Committed Against the Monarch where he was taken directly to
speak to the floor manager and once he was in the chain of the managers the King moved
up quickly and the Baby Trafficking Accident Report would swim to the surface every
few days until the King got to the Highest Office of Power and he was sent to his own
desk and went back to floor manager to complain...
This circle of events would still be going today, but on the third day,
the Queen found the dwarf listed as a mutual friend of a dwarf she met
at one of the King's parties earlier in the year. It was on Facebook.
So he obviously had listed his home address and phone number
and two guards accompanied her to the dwarf's house.
She started screaming, "Rumpelstiltskin" as soon as she saw him.
He lived in a brick house in the projects with azaleas by the door.
He leaned on the wall underneath a grated window patting his belly
There was a boiling pot of water on the fire. The Queen screamed
and the guards took to beating him. The Queen stomped on his azaleas.
For the sake of form, he was given a trial.
During the proceeding, he was rumored to have said,
"I didn't eat the baby, you idiots! This is profiling! It's sitting
in my house right now starving to death. Please let me go
or at least have someone feed him. I don't care who!"
They were all pretty unhappy and no one lived ever after.
Especially not Rumpelstiltskin.
He was executed
for Cannibalizing Infantile Sovereigns.
