The Fairy Tale Committee
Many gathered in the shack
The committee for fairy tales
And the characters to act
By invitation through the mail.
The purpose of this meeting?
What’s expected from a story
Make it last instead of fleeting
How it lives in memory.
“Thank you all for coming,”
Said the committee’s president,
“We have ideas we’re running
By you for your consent.
We feel what reader’s desire
Is a role model for children
What better than true love’s fire
That is how we will begin.”
The committee passed out scripts
As the president spoke on,
“Every girl shall be equipped
To marry, the outcome’s forgone.”
“This makes absolutely no sense,”
Was the opinion of Snow White,
“We all will marry a prince?
Does love exist at first sight?”
“I’m locked in a tower for years,”
Said Rapunzel, “the first guy I meet
I marry. Then the desert in tears
With a child who quite needs to eat.
Couldn’t I go get a job?”
“I agree,” cried the Mermaid,
“I sell my voice, I can’t even sob
Leave my sisters, don’t obey.
All for a man I don’t know
Who’s in love with some woman
I die of a broken heart, so
What a great role model I am!”
“Lots of us don’t know our husbands,”
Sleeping Beauty was quite irate,
“I take a hundred-year nap and
Marry the first guy without dates.”
“Something like that happened to me,”
Said Snow White, “A complete stranger
Kissed the first corpse that he sees,
And no one cries foul or danger?
You are forcing a rescue,”
“At least your prince recognized you,”
Cinderella was angry too,
He only finds me by my shoe!
That doesn’t sound like true love
No one has the same size as me?”
Last girl spoke, “when push comes to shove
I marry ‘cause I slept on a pea.”
"What’s the matter with you guys?
We know what we are doing,”
The leader had tears in her eyes,
“Your men are perfect. Start wooing.
Little Mermaid, your story’s sad,
But you spared the man who refused you
As a role model, you’re not bad
And you will win a soul too.
Sleeping Beauty, you marry him
Because he’s your true love
Only love’s kiss could you awaken
Your love is as real as a dove.
You eat the apple, Snow White,
Because you’re naive and young,”
“My life was threatened,” she bites,
“I’m not as foolish as is sung!”
The president turned with a sigh,
“Cinderella, he made no mistakes,”
“Only I have such a small size?”
She repeated. “This takes the cake!”
"That’s how he knows you’re a princess,”
Said the leader, now desperate,
“So, he wants my title, no less,”
The Pea Princess looked hurt, irate.
“You’re all being impossible!”
“We do not mind our marriage
It just should be probable
‘fore we ride off in a carriage.”
“It’s in the fairy tale rule book
There is no use arguing,”
The princesses shared a look
“We’ll do it, but it’s insulting.
And some day it won’t end so silly,”
“Ha! That’ll take blood, sweat, and tears
That will never happen, really
At least for five hundred years!”