The Littlest Prince

Today was another painfully un-eventful day at work in Touristville, CA.

(Except for the time the emergency alarm went off and we couldn’t find the key to lock the door that would silence it and one of the customers got all bothered and weird and told my co-worker that I had been “very rude.” Yah… except for that…)

The store was moderately busy, I was moderately irritated at being scheduled on a Sunday, and the whole thing was pretty much like any other day at work.

Now, over the past few days I have discovered something particularly useful in helping to keep me awake through the duration of my shift. This thing is Mobile Twitter.

True, Twitter and I have had our ups and downs. We got off to a pretty rocky start, what with my expecting it to be always on top of things, and its total and utter failure to do so. But we stuck with it - developed a rhythm, boundaries (sort of), and a deeper understanding of our own respective quirks. At the moment we are enjoying a period of happiness and adoration (though this could end at any time, as we’re both terribly moody!) The only problem we seem to suffer from is the horrifying thought of ever having to be apart. (Seriously, I often keep my phone next to my pillow, on silent, so that I can wake up to it in the morning. That is how bad it’s gotten.)

While being able to take Twitter with me to work is a huge advantage, it still does not solve the problem of being bored out of my skull all the time… because that would be IMPOSSIBLE. (I will say that it solves the problem about three times out of ten… which may explain why I have unceremoniously taken over your wall the last couple of days… Sorry!)

Yesterday, in one of those dreaded but inevitable moments of boredom, I discovered a toy that was rendered “un-sellable” on account of it’s having fallen apart from within it’s box. This toy was a “Little Prince.” (You may remember him… I twittered about it. Naturally.) The toy is not actually called a  ”Little Prince” but a “Frog Prince”… however, seeing as the frog head had already fallen off by the time I discovered him, I decided to rename it.

Aaaanyway, in case you don’t know what a Little Prince is (few do) it is a little toy frog in a cup which miraculously grows into a little toy prince in a cup after adding water and allowing him to sit for 72 hours (I know… he takes a while!) He has a little crown and everything… and, I imagine, is intended to make quite a catch for Thumbelina, as he would still be rather small even at full size.

Naturally, being absolutely delighted with anything that allows us to behave like children, my manager and I decided to grow him… the frog head was lost, but the frog head was merely an illusion to begin with… and we don’t discriminate! So I filled the cup with water (messy… you have to get it all in a little hole!) and placed him on the counter for constant surveillance. Or, half-assed-barely-paying-attention surveillance… but I think you get the idea!

Everything was going along pretty smoothly… he had an ink splotch under his left eye that looked like a shiner (tiny prince vs tiny peasant show-down, perhaps?) and I was too lazy to change his water so he was standing in a sea of green (frog-die)… but other than that, everything was going along according to schedule. Or was it? Little Prince, although appearing to have grown substantially since the previous night, was actually the EXACT SAME SIZE! The cup had magnifying powers, the little demon! It could, being so filled with water, trick the eye into believing that Little Prince had done his part and grown during the night. Apon peering in at the prince from the top of the cup, however, it became clear that he had not. DECEIT. I was so furious at Little Prince for his lying that I barely even protested as Third-Party Coworker carted him off to the microwave for experimental purposes. Perhaps this is what he deserves, I reasoned.

Three minutes later, Little Prince was returned. It did not look good. He had, in fact, exploded. It was… horrible. I cried (not really). There was a funeral (there wasn’t). The Queen came (she didn’t). And as I was staring into his little demolished face, it stuck me – the meaninglessness of it all. True, magnifying himself to appear larger was truly heinous. But hadn’t he always been up-front about how long it would take? He wasn’t going to get there for 72 hours! I had known this! It hadn’t even been 24 hours, though, before I became so impatient that I allowed for his certain death. What was wrong with me? Was I really so careless, so callous, so selfish as to demand more from him than that which he had promised? I couldn’t bare it… it was too much to take.

I hadn’t even remembered to take pictures for a “before and after”….

(Okay, who found all the dirty parts?)

About these ads