The Sleeping Beauty Question

All too many of us women secretly want to be woken out of our fog by an arriving prince there to rescue. It’s not that we don’t have plenty of greatness on our own; it’s that we’re built to relate and connect, which just can’t be fulfilled fully solo. Lest ye princes rush out to purchase white stallions and satin riding pants, here are some tips and tricks to enticing we awaiting damsels:

+ If we are actually asleep, you will need to wake us up. Things that are aromatic include freshly cut roses, your armpits after gallivanting all that way, and pickles. Pickles are edible, which is a plus.

+ Don’t make fun of our sleeping gown. You haven’t been around; why should we have laundered it? Yes, those are tomato sauce stains. Fuck off. Wait, no—not really.

+ We know you think it’s ridiculous to come bearing gifts, or at least requires at least fifteen minutes of your time when you could be playing video games or trading on the stock market, but it’s kind of important. We’re letting you into our house. We’re wearing our tomato stained sleeping gown, which you have to admit is a little revealing. You’re the prince.

+ If you expect us to have really long hair, you have been reading too many comic books. We got split ends. We had no choice but to trim. Sometimes we use a curling iron, but mostly we shower at the gym and hope it dries okay on the car ride back. We might be trapped in a tower, but we still have a car. We effectively talked the salesman down from the sticker price.

+ Just because you show up and kiss us awake and we like you and everything doesn’t mean we’re going to suffocate you and expect you to call every five minutes. We have things to do too, you know. Like keep away witches. And try not to get trapped in glass boxes again. Or spend too much time with dwarves.

+ Feel glad. There were other princes, and they didn’t even know how to scale a small brush to get to us, if you know what we mean. Or they bungled in and we pretended to be the asleep princess that’s actually dead. It worked—we fooled them. We made your job super easy knowing we’d get no credit, and you’d possibly get freaked out that we responded to you at all, even though you were the one who brought the horse and the big sword.

+ We’re royalty. We like velvet. Stuff ends happily.