Princesses Don't Wear Blue Jeans

"Grammaw, why did those people smile and hold the door open for us?" asked the lil' granddaughter.

"I think it was because they recognized that we were princesses", I explained. It probably had a lot to do with one of us wearing blue hair, a tiara, and carrying a color-coordinated magic wand casting spells on the other one of us that was carrying a couple of bags and a huge dog bed. I was now a big sick green frog that was never, ever going to get better, or so I was told.

"Grammaw", she said severely "we are not dressed like princesses".

"Well, how do princesses dress?"

"They do not wear blue jeans. They wear sparkly, pretty dresses."

"Then how about if I sprayed some sparkle spray on my blue jeans to highlight the cellulite?"

"What?"

"Never mind."

"Grammaw, princesses don't ever wear blue jeans." There must be some princess handbook out there for 6 year olds because she sounded very sure of her facts.

"Never? Not even when they clean the castle?"

"GRAMMAW! Princesses don't CLEAN." She sounded horrified, as if I had suggested that princesses eat babies.

"What do they do then?"

"They wear pretty clothes and go to balls."

"Sounds pretty boring to me." Uncomfortable, too. I don't know how many hours on end I could keep my stomach sucked in and my chest stuck out. Not to mention that after the ordeal of getting into that party dress, there would be no drinking and eating for me.

"They try on pretty clothes, too. You don't even have on a princess shirt."

"What's wrong with my shirt? Isn't it princessy enough?" It was a long-sleeved red henley, a little worse for wear, the kind that a self-respecting princess would rather be eaten by a dragon than be seen in public in.

"It has HAY on it." So it did. It probably had horse boogers on it somewhere, too. I'd really rather not know what my back looked like.

"How about if I put sparkles on it?"

"No."

"How about if I put sparkles on the hay?"

"No, grammaw, princesses do not have hay on them."

"Not even when they go out to visit the knights that are off to slay dragons for them? Not even if they have a stableboy named Arrrrrmando?"

"GRAMMAW! There are NO SUCH THINGS as dragons!"

"That's because the knights and princes killed them all to impress princesses. We princesses are very hard to impress and used to require at least one dead dragon per proposal of marriage. They had to kill the dragon because the dragons have a lot of gold and princesses require a lot of spending money." She pondered that for a bit, and decided that it made sense.

"Did papa kill any dragons for you?"

"No, baby, they were all extinct by then. That's why I have to wear clothes without sparkles, even blue jeans, and carry my own hay because I do not have a stable boy. Papa killed a spider once, though."

"Was it big and scary?"

"EXTREMELY big and scary. It had lots of glowing green eyes and fangs that were dripping poison."

After considering it, she decided that papa's valor in killing the spider was roughly equivalent to a prince killing a dragon, even though it didn't do anything for the bank account.