The Ever-Loving Virgin Prince
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
One Last Bit Of Festivus Cheer
Most terrible news everyone!
I’m back.
No, that’s not the terrible news. Rather, I think that would warm your shrivelled and callused hearts. No, the terrible news is that once more, I am without servant boy.
Thursday, after cleaning spotlessly the Virgin-bathroom, young Bjorgen was slightly dizzy, no doubt from all the cleaning chemicals he’d been exposed to. Though in his modestly altered state I found his personality slightly more lacking, I must admit to rather enjoying the new title he had started calling me by, that being “O Luminous One”. Though the quality of Bjorgen’s work had, without a doubt, began to suffer, his whines for freedom had abated altogether, and thus, I did not mind him taking the occasional 20 minute break to stare at his hands.
The young lad had gotten to the business of spit-shining my shoes, something in which I am most insistent about the application of actual spit in providing a good polish. Slowly and surely, the boy had gotten to each sitting pair of shoes, one by one. My arctic survival-gear boots were polished to the point of mirror shine, lustrous and black, entertaining me with visions of how I would look as a dark and handsome ebony lad. The shoes that matched my tuxedo were beauteous in their post-polish contrast, the ebony which dominated the shoe seemed blacker than night, ever visible even amongst the dark surroundings of a moonlit eve, while the ivory leather centered above the toe, shone like a shield and sparkled in the light like a wheelbarrow wet with dew on a Tacoma morning.
Indeed, every shoe I’d handed the young lad had been returned to me with renewed life, had become a thing of beauty, a work of majestic artistry, something to be numbered and hung on a gallery wall, and adorned with a three-digit price tag. I suppose I’d been put a bit off-guard in the moment, scrambling for my next shoe to see it shine in the same splendor as the last. In careless thoughtlessness I handed Bjorgen my rocket-boots. As the boy dragged his polish-stained rag across the surface of my left rocket-boot, his finger caught the activator switch and the boot came to life, kicking with a large stream of flame. By reflex and largely without thought, the boy’s fingers gripped tightly the boot and the two of them flew off, out through the roof of my Fortress of Fortitude and off to parts unknown, young Bjorgen screaming all the way.
I have no clue where the boy is now, he could be in Jersey, or China, or an atoll in the Pacific. The boot’s charge was full, and with the boy’s prepubescent, bread-and-water bodyweight (or lack thereof) I doubt there’s any place he couldn’t have gone. I’m tempted to think that while the boy made it look like an accident, the event had actually been planned all along, and the Clorox and Drano stupor the boy had been within was merely ploy, enabling him access to my rocket-boots, and thus freedom. The boy had fooled me. Fooled me like the Deer Hunter fools his Vietnamese captors into giving him two bullets on a Russian Roulette morn. Damn that trickster of indeterminate origin and his bit of Tom-Sawyery!
I tried calling the factory from where I had acquired the boy, to demand a refund or replacement, but found they had been shutdown. Shutdown due to “blatant violation and deprivation of basic human rights”. Feh! It’s my rights that have been violated, I who have been deprived of the basic human right of having peeled grapes hand-fed to me, I who have been deprived of the basic human right of having someone to navigate through the crawl-spaces of my manor to personally deal with my problem of rabid-rodentia, I who have been deprived of the basic human right to a sponge-bath every morning. I am most definitely not pleased.
I was quickly distracted from my feelings of irritation by a last minute trip to visit my father for a late celebration of Festivus. For reasons unknown to me, perhaps out of homesickness, my father had returned to Pluto. After my family’s overthrow from government in the late 1970s and subsequent relocation to Earth, I had no intention of ever returning to the bland, frigid mudball that is my ancestral home. I had assumed my family felt the same. Apparently not. My father was hiding in a grand hole he had dug himself at the base of the largest aluminum pole on Pluto.
I’ve been spoiled by Earth-life and I don’t care much for Pluto. The initial novelty of people with eyes in the palms of their hands and women with up to four breasts is lost on me. Okay, maybe not the four-breasted women. But a load of good it does me! While I have twice the looks of Prince William of Britain, and entirely less decomposition than JFK Jr., my royal heritage gains me not my due celebrity status and sorely deserved legions of loose female fans. Indeed, the fact of my royal lineage must be hidden from the people of Pluto, and it is most fortunate that my adult face is not known to them, lest I be chased off of the planet by people wielding pitchforks and torches raised once more. My father is less fortunate and must wear a disguise to mingle amongst the people of Pluto, though personally I fail to see the effectiveness of Groucho-glasses on one who already bears a passing resemblance to the great performer.
My father, Polé, the telescoping man, and rightful King of Pluto, did his best to make a fine belated Festivus for us. There were Pixie Sticks in every stocking and a fine roasted chickencow served up at the dinner table. We danced all night to Girl From Ipanema (Pluto’s national anthem and probably it’s only saving grace) and played a game of “That’s Al Gore!” Our father reiterated to us the long-forgotten lesson of why one should never tease a weasel and at the end of it all we plotted on how to imprison the Antichrist, George Bush Jr., on a space station on the moon. Good fun was had by all! The occasional bit of falling dirt and bugs in our hair hadn’t really been that big an inconvenience after all.
Finally, it was time to leave and return home, and after giving and receiving a great deal of hugs, I boarded my shuttle. The trip home left me with time to reflect on the merriment had and thoughts of perhaps one day returning to Pluto after all. But I would return as a king, and I would oust our vile opponent, the fairly-elected, and much loved, President La Pistola. Someday, Pistola, someday. Institute your literacy programs and universal health care while you can, because someday, The Virgin Prince is coming back.
My lair was in terrible shape when I returned, an altogether horrible state of filth. As a servant boy, Bobo makes a terrible substitute for Bjorgen. The walls are dirtier than when I left, there’s ape-hair in the butter dish, and you don’t even want to know what Bobo’s method of shoe-shining involves. Still, we get by. Until next time…
Be seeing you,
The Virgin Prince
I’m back.
No, that’s not the terrible news. Rather, I think that would warm your shrivelled and callused hearts. No, the terrible news is that once more, I am without servant boy.
Thursday, after cleaning spotlessly the Virgin-bathroom, young Bjorgen was slightly dizzy, no doubt from all the cleaning chemicals he’d been exposed to. Though in his modestly altered state I found his personality slightly more lacking, I must admit to rather enjoying the new title he had started calling me by, that being “O Luminous One”. Though the quality of Bjorgen’s work had, without a doubt, began to suffer, his whines for freedom had abated altogether, and thus, I did not mind him taking the occasional 20 minute break to stare at his hands.
The young lad had gotten to the business of spit-shining my shoes, something in which I am most insistent about the application of actual spit in providing a good polish. Slowly and surely, the boy had gotten to each sitting pair of shoes, one by one. My arctic survival-gear boots were polished to the point of mirror shine, lustrous and black, entertaining me with visions of how I would look as a dark and handsome ebony lad. The shoes that matched my tuxedo were beauteous in their post-polish contrast, the ebony which dominated the shoe seemed blacker than night, ever visible even amongst the dark surroundings of a moonlit eve, while the ivory leather centered above the toe, shone like a shield and sparkled in the light like a wheelbarrow wet with dew on a Tacoma morning.
Indeed, every shoe I’d handed the young lad had been returned to me with renewed life, had become a thing of beauty, a work of majestic artistry, something to be numbered and hung on a gallery wall, and adorned with a three-digit price tag. I suppose I’d been put a bit off-guard in the moment, scrambling for my next shoe to see it shine in the same splendor as the last. In careless thoughtlessness I handed Bjorgen my rocket-boots. As the boy dragged his polish-stained rag across the surface of my left rocket-boot, his finger caught the activator switch and the boot came to life, kicking with a large stream of flame. By reflex and largely without thought, the boy’s fingers gripped tightly the boot and the two of them flew off, out through the roof of my Fortress of Fortitude and off to parts unknown, young Bjorgen screaming all the way.
I have no clue where the boy is now, he could be in Jersey, or China, or an atoll in the Pacific. The boot’s charge was full, and with the boy’s prepubescent, bread-and-water bodyweight (or lack thereof) I doubt there’s any place he couldn’t have gone. I’m tempted to think that while the boy made it look like an accident, the event had actually been planned all along, and the Clorox and Drano stupor the boy had been within was merely ploy, enabling him access to my rocket-boots, and thus freedom. The boy had fooled me. Fooled me like the Deer Hunter fools his Vietnamese captors into giving him two bullets on a Russian Roulette morn. Damn that trickster of indeterminate origin and his bit of Tom-Sawyery!
I tried calling the factory from where I had acquired the boy, to demand a refund or replacement, but found they had been shutdown. Shutdown due to “blatant violation and deprivation of basic human rights”. Feh! It’s my rights that have been violated, I who have been deprived of the basic human right of having peeled grapes hand-fed to me, I who have been deprived of the basic human right of having someone to navigate through the crawl-spaces of my manor to personally deal with my problem of rabid-rodentia, I who have been deprived of the basic human right to a sponge-bath every morning. I am most definitely not pleased.
I was quickly distracted from my feelings of irritation by a last minute trip to visit my father for a late celebration of Festivus. For reasons unknown to me, perhaps out of homesickness, my father had returned to Pluto. After my family’s overthrow from government in the late 1970s and subsequent relocation to Earth, I had no intention of ever returning to the bland, frigid mudball that is my ancestral home. I had assumed my family felt the same. Apparently not. My father was hiding in a grand hole he had dug himself at the base of the largest aluminum pole on Pluto.
I’ve been spoiled by Earth-life and I don’t care much for Pluto. The initial novelty of people with eyes in the palms of their hands and women with up to four breasts is lost on me. Okay, maybe not the four-breasted women. But a load of good it does me! While I have twice the looks of Prince William of Britain, and entirely less decomposition than JFK Jr., my royal heritage gains me not my due celebrity status and sorely deserved legions of loose female fans. Indeed, the fact of my royal lineage must be hidden from the people of Pluto, and it is most fortunate that my adult face is not known to them, lest I be chased off of the planet by people wielding pitchforks and torches raised once more. My father is less fortunate and must wear a disguise to mingle amongst the people of Pluto, though personally I fail to see the effectiveness of Groucho-glasses on one who already bears a passing resemblance to the great performer.
My father, Polé, the telescoping man, and rightful King of Pluto, did his best to make a fine belated Festivus for us. There were Pixie Sticks in every stocking and a fine roasted chickencow served up at the dinner table. We danced all night to Girl From Ipanema (Pluto’s national anthem and probably it’s only saving grace) and played a game of “That’s Al Gore!” Our father reiterated to us the long-forgotten lesson of why one should never tease a weasel and at the end of it all we plotted on how to imprison the Antichrist, George Bush Jr., on a space station on the moon. Good fun was had by all! The occasional bit of falling dirt and bugs in our hair hadn’t really been that big an inconvenience after all.
Finally, it was time to leave and return home, and after giving and receiving a great deal of hugs, I boarded my shuttle. The trip home left me with time to reflect on the merriment had and thoughts of perhaps one day returning to Pluto after all. But I would return as a king, and I would oust our vile opponent, the fairly-elected, and much loved, President La Pistola. Someday, Pistola, someday. Institute your literacy programs and universal health care while you can, because someday, The Virgin Prince is coming back.
My lair was in terrible shape when I returned, an altogether horrible state of filth. As a servant boy, Bobo makes a terrible substitute for Bjorgen. The walls are dirtier than when I left, there’s ape-hair in the butter dish, and you don’t even want to know what Bobo’s method of shoe-shining involves. Still, we get by. Until next time…
The Virgin Prince
