Part II: Princess Boo Wakes Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed

II. Princess Boo is Served Cold Breakfast in Bed.

Jasmine tea (hot) and chai tea (super sweet) rounded out her morning meal (it was half-past noon).

Princess Boo scanned her breakfast tray suspiciously. Something was missing… “Ah, hah!” she pounced. “Where is my ice cream? You know I only eat waffles a là mode!”

The butler stuttered. “Well, well, your highness, you said you like crepes a là mode but not waffles, at least not in the mornings. Ice cream so early in the day makes you shiver.” Brrr! The butler shivered. He knew he was in trouble.

“What are you saying? It’s midday and fairly warm for this time of year. As a matter of fact, if I weren’t a princess I’d be perspiring!” Princess Boo dug into her waffles. They were cold and stale! “My waffles are cold and stale.” Princess Boo pronounced.

“Si-since your breakfast is so cold, your highness, it’s almost as if you had ice cream…”

“Off with your head!” Princess Boo made a swishing motion with her arm. Princess Boo had little sense of humor, and none at her expense.  By this time, the butler was fairly shaking in his boots. “To the galleys you go! I shall oversee the firing squad myself!”

Her poor butler perspired at the thought of being beheaded, then hung, then shot, and wondered if he would be allowed a last smoke after they blindfolded him before the firing squad. It gave him some consolation.

“Why is it that no one can ever serve me my breakfast hot?” Princess Boo wailed as she glared at her meal.  “All I ask is a hot meal without excuses and all I ever get is ice creamless waffles. How can a princess subsist?” she asked through mouthfuls of blueberries and chocolate loaf. For all she ate, Princess Boo cut quite the slender picture of a princess. The royal portrait hanging in the Hall of Monarchs flattered Princess Boo. When the Royal Portrait Painter had painted Princess Boo’s official portrait, Princess Boo had to inhale the entire time because pictures add ten pounds on a person “so make sure you paint my good angle.” Princess boo warned. “I don’t want to have to repose to have my portrait painted again!”

And thus the official portrait of Princess Boo III was painted with her good side facing the Royal Painter. Make sure you don’t exaggerate my pout!” she cautioned the Royal Painter, blue in the face, Princess Boo that is, because it was difficult to shout commands while one is inhaling for prolonged periods of time. She had heard her aunt observe to her King Father that Princess Boo had such a royal pout as to put all pouts to shame. Princess Boo was very proud of that pout but thought that a royal portrait necessitated modesty. There would be plenty of times to pout, Princess Boo reassured herself as she struck her most regal expression for the Royal Painter, which consisted of impatience, irritability, and noblesse oblige, the latter of which she thoroughly did not understand. It was a term her mother used to use.

Well, here she was and another excellent opportunity to pout, if not give a downright fit.

“Perhaps, your highness, it, it is because the kitchen is so very far away from your rooms,” stammered the butler through Princess Boo’s mental grumblings.

“What was that?” Princess Boo demanded. Did the Royal Person ask for your thoughts?”

“Well, your highness, you did ask me why your breakfast is always cold. You see, it takes time to get from the kitchen to--”

“Then run faster.” The Princess fairly spat.

“Your highness, it is one point five leagues from the kitchen of your father’s castle to the top of your castle.” Replied the butler, who had run many marathons and had measured the distance with a pedometer. “When my predecessors used to bring you breakfast in your old room in your father’s castle, the distance was half as much. If there were a kitchen in your new castle--”

“You expect the royal treasury to pay for two kitchens when one will suffice? Off with your head!” Princess Boo exclaimed with a swish of her hand. Which didn’t explain why there were two castles. Yet everyone knew it was because Princess Boo needed more closet space. And as her King Father placed a firm foot down on extravagant expenses, (the townsfolk were grumbling), the second castle had no kitchen.

The Butler, emboldened by his impending beheading and subsequent hanging followed by death-by-firing squad, squeaked out, “Maybe your breakfast is always cold because y-you frequently wake up on, on (gulp) on the wrong side of the bed.” There! He said it! And thought a chorus of saints gasp in horror somewhere in heaven.

“Your highness to you!” corrected Boo. Actually, the butler had been trying to say “your highness” but all that would come out of his poor throat was “y-you”. “That is the most ridiculous thing I have every heard!” scoffed a now red-faced Boo. “You mock your princess, serveling?” That is what Princess Boo called her servants when she wanted to belittle them. It also rhymed with “sniveling,” which PB also frequently called her servelings. 

“No, no, your highness. It’s that people who get up on the right side of the bed usually don’t complain (another collective gasp from heaven, the angels this time)—I mean—don’t get served—I mean, get served breakfast hot, the way they like it that is!” Poor, ill-fated butler.  If only he could explain, but his nerves were making him shake as a condemned man. But Princess Boo was no longer hearing any of it. As near she could, Princess Boo enjoyed what was left of her cold breakfast and decided to tell the King Father all about the incompetence, nay, the incompentencies of her serving staff. (She rarely used “serveling” in front of the King Father. He didn’t approve.)

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