Bibetty Boppety Boo

I have always loved the idea of spontaneous combustion. It’s just always seemed possible to me in my fevered imagination. Intellectually I know we’re supposed to scorn those dolts in the Middle Ages who thought it was possible to hatch a patch of maggots from a pile of garbage, but there’s this disconnect somewhere in my brain that thinks…I don’t know what I think but it’s along the lines of understanding that Dumbo can fly and mice can make Cinderella a dress.
If you can go to Narnia through a wardrobe, why not grow maggots at home in your rags? Or mice in your trash.
I guess the reason we believe in magic is it appeals to the lazy houseboy in all of us. Who has not looked at their living room and thought about how easy it would be to throw up pretty, well-shaped upper arms and wave them around and have all the books go back in their bookcase and the dust swirl up in a whirlwind and dive by itself into the trash can?
And mostly it’s pretty people who do magic. It’s never the fat boy stuffing his face with stolen scones or mean girls with buckteeth. It’s always the undiscovered princess with the up-tilted nose and the great waistline that turns out to have a fairy godmother.
In other words, it’s never me. I’m not mean nor do I have buckteeth, but that little fat boy and I might get together later if he has any scones left.
Also the people who do magic, and I’m not talking about the trolls and the evil step-moms who already have all the power, I’m talking about the downtrodden simps who always get to have magic powers, are always beloved in someway. They have mice and cats that love them, or widowed fathers or grandpas.
And they like to work hard. I think that maybe grates on me the most. They all have this unrelenting capacity to do hard manual labor. They tote pails of slopping water up and down the stairs to clean up and their mops are always going or their dust rags. It’s like you have to become a Merry Maid to ever get anywhere in the Free Ride World.
And that’s what’s going to happen next. They are going to marry the very rich guy. They’re never going to marry a failed inventor or a guy who owns four acres and pays half of all he makes to the king. That guy may be really cute and a great father and know how to sing every verse to every song and be a great guitar player, which would have been a fabulous thing in the olden days before cable, but if he ain’t rich, he’s going to have to settle for some neighbor girl who serves leftovers three nights a week and never sweeps the hovel floor unless she has to.
The “magic” girl is going to marry a prince with a great horse or a great carriage if he can’t ride. Essentially she’s going to become a master housekeeper with a slew of maids to boss around. She’ll have to give parties three times a week for visiting dignitaries and suck up to neighboring princes who want to steal her husband’s empire.
She’s going to have to keep her hair done all the time before products are invented and bed-head is cool. And wear a corset and never be able to breathe again and pretty soon she’ll die early from some lung problem or gall bladder disease from eating all that fattening food at court.
And she’ll be glad because all she ever really got to do was clean house anyway and she probably will look at the window from her deathbed at the little hovel with the neighbor girl playing outside with her cute little kids and think why, oh why, did I ever go to that ball?