A prince is ready to find a young woman with whom he will share his heart and his life. His parents are very concerned with issues of class and good breeding, but he doesn’t care about all that. He just wants to find love. He looks high and low on his travels, but he can’t find his soul’s mate. So, he goes back home. One night there is a big rainstorm and a knock on the gate. The King opens the door to find a soggy young lady, drenched with rain. She claims to be a princess and seeks shelter. The Queen, wise shrew that she is, doubts the veracity of the girl’s credentials. So, she devises a test. The Queen places a single pea beneath a stack of twenty mattresses and twenty elder-down beds. If this so-called Princess can sleep under these conditions, then a Princess she is not. The Princess comes down to breakfast the next day looking decidedly dogged and droopy and says, “Oh, that bed was dreadful! I couldn’t sleep a wink in such a lumpy bed. My body is black and blue!” The Queen is thrilled to finally have made a proper royal match. The Prince doesn’t care a lick about that stuff and is mildly annoyed by the girl’s neuroses and entitlement. But he does find the Princess to be a very interesting conversationalist and he likes her smile quite a lot. The Princess is equally interested in the Prince…in fact, she is charmed by his good looks, kindness and keen interest in fly fishing. She asks him to be her husband and they live happily ever after—except for the hard parts, which they manage to get through. There. Now that is a true story.

Check back this week. The puppets will be in my new Shop! And these great photos were taken by Jill McNamara.