Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away, there lived a beautiful princess.

Actually, that’s not completely true. Technically, if truth be told, she wasn’t a princess at all – although she did prefer to think of herself as one – just like in the way that let’s say the sister or the brother of a serial killer, convicted pedophile or cashier at Big Lots – may prefer to think of themselves as an only child. You see, sometimes it’s just easier to put your faith in something that isn’t true rather than to have to accept something that is.

And as for beautiful – well, I’m sure that we will all admit that beauty is relative, or at least that’s what we say when we’re out with our more liberal friends enjoying that one last drink of the evening and discussing how difficult it is to find someone of “substance” and “quality” in this town, or any town for that matter, in which to pursue a romantic relationship with and how looks really aren’t that important because it’s what’s inside that really matters (or some other bullshit line like that because let’s face it, “substance” and “quality” aside, you’re still going to end up swiping right if you’re not feeling it or more importantly you don’t want them feeling you) – until there’s that lull in the conversation, seven minutes that’s the rule and then that one friend of a friend who you just met tonight, pipes up from the end of the table proudly announcing, “I dated a black guy in college.”

And then everything stops. Followed by an awkward silence.

Oh God, what the hell did you say that for? Why can’t you just keep your mouth shut ? You never learn, do you? This – this is why you never get invited anywhere so why don’t you just crawl home and everyone smiles just to polite and uncomfortably looks down at their empty glass, stirring that one last ice cube until someone suggests that we get the check because it’s getting late and I have an early spin class in the morning.

Now, the beautiful princess lived by the sea in a tiny little blue house that was just the right size for her and her pet octopus. The pet octopus’s name was Francis and he used to sleep at the foot of the beautiful princess’s bed every night as she dreamt of one day meeting her charming prince which whom to share her tiny little blue house with. Now I’m sure that some of you may be thinking that with the addition of a charming prince that there surely would not be enough room in that tiny little blue house for the three of them and that is very true.

Truth be told, it was a very tiny little blue house with no central air and only one closet, which wasn’t nearly big enough for all of the fancy party dresses that the beautiful princess had gone out and bought herself – maxing out all four of her credit cards – in the hope that one day she might be invited to a fancy party where there she might meet her charming prince and the three of them – prince, princess and octopus would live happily ever after.

Only there had been no fancy parties or at least no invitations addressed to her that filled the mailbox of her tiny little blue house and all of those fancy party dresses hung solemnly in her one and only closet, silently judging her every time she shut the door – which made the beautiful princess more than a little sad as she peeled the plastic off of her Smart and Skinny Microwavable Dinner For One and spent the majority of her evenings at home in front of the television watching the Food Network and browsing the internet for cute clip art that she could use at work for their upcoming holiday food drive, all the while, there was Francis curled up by her feet, snoring contentedly.

Octopuses do that, you know. They don’t have a care in the world. It must be nice. Not like brine shrimp. Brine shrimp worry about everything. From the temperature of the ocean to which of the hundreds of thousands of predators swimming in that ocean will eat them for brunch. But most of all, brine shrimp worry about whether they’ve disappointed an entire generation of children, who expected them to look and behave like the Sea Monkeys advertised on the back of a comic book. I had even read once that there had been an increase in the number of brine shrimp suicides immediately after the toy company started marketing Sea Monkeys in the fall of 1972. Imagine that you worry so much that you’ve disappointed someone so that you choose to end your own life so as not to hurt that person even more than you already have. That worries me.

But I wouldn’t worry too much about whether there would be enough room for the beautiful princess, her charming prince, all those fancy party dresses and Francis the octopus because it just so happens that Francis the octopus would die shortly after this story began, leaving the beautiful princess very sad and even more lonely in her tiny little blue house by the sea.

But what are you going to do? These things happen. truth be told, this is why I will never get another dog. Dogs will die on you. I’m sorry but it’s just one of those unpleasant details that they fail to mention when you and your boyfriend are happily filling out the adoption paperwork at the local animal shelter for that adorable little puppy all alone in its cage with the sad green eyes named “Bingo” as in “Was his Name-O”. Not that you were planning on keeping that name because who in the hell would ever name an animal anything that cliché as the two of you laugh to yourselves on the ride home, bouncing possible new names for that adorable bundle of fur in the backseat – Sparky, Rascal, Buttons, Rex or Champ – meanwhile the canine in question is surreptitiously relieving itself all over your brand new leather interior and no matter how many trips to the car wash you make to have the inside detailed, there will always be that faint aroma of dander and urine – unlike the boyfriend who will move out less that a year later because he just wasn’t really a “dog person” after all.

Until one Tuesday night, when the beautiful princess had been coming home late – well late for her – from an office retirement party for a woman with whom she only had a passing acquaintance but that really didn’t matter because the email had gone out to the whole department and the beautiful princess didn’t have anything else to do on a weekday night, she never did, so why not? Maybe it’ll be fun – only it really wasn’t (those types of events never are) and as usual, the beautiful princess ended up at the end of the table talking about scrapbooking ideas with Maureen from Accounting, as across the room, those pretty young girls from the Marketing Department with their perky breasts and thin waists made lewd and suggestive remarks to the underage busboys as they ordered yet another round of happy hour margaritas. And it was getting late. And the beautiful princess had to work in the morning. And even though she had only had just the one margarita, just to be polite, she was already starting to feel the effects of the cheap house tequila and thought it best as she waited for the light to turn green at the intersection of Third and Main that maybe she should just pop into her local supermarket and pick up a few things, or at least get a little something to help settle her stomach. And so she did. And as she wheeled her shopping cart down the frozen foods aisle and tried to convince herself that she really had had a better time than she was giving herself credit for and why don’t you do things like that more often and I should probably just grab another thing of non-dairy creamer for the office because not everyone uses soy milk and maybe join a bowling league or take that Pilates class that Maureen had recommended to her and oh, those donuts look good, no I’d better not, you’re already fat enough already – or go out to eat at one of those communal table restaurants that she had read about in the weekly free paper where everyone sits around on the floor or on low wooden benches and orders one dish to be shared with the rest of the group and who knows maybe you might be seated next to your charming prince or someone who lived down the hall from a charming prince that thinks that the two of you would be great together and he won’t mind if I give you his phone number or maybe just someone who doesn’t think that it’s strange that a beautiful princess is having dinner all by herself at a communal table where everyone else is one half of a couple – and then suddenly there he was.

Standing there behind a card table stood the most handsome frog that the beautiful princess had ever laid eyes on. He was very tall for an amphibian, almost six-foot seven, covered in tattoos and had the most beautiful green eyes, the color of which reminded her of her one and only boyfriend and of the high school class ring with the real emerald that he had given to her two weeks before he was killed in a motorcycle accident. The handsome frog smiled down with kind and gentle eyes at the beautiful princess and extended a silver tray, though it was really only plastic, on which there were a half a dozen or more bite-sized pieces of a brand new spinach and ricotta wrapped in phyllo dough hot hors oeuvre. “Just three and a half minutes in the microwave or twenty-five in a conventional oven. Would you care to try one, Miss?”

“Sure.” the beautiful princess replied in almost a stunned whisper, then quickly looked down at the Smart and Skinny Microwavable Dinners For One, littering the bottom of her shopping cart – hands now shaking, holding tighter in order to steady herself. No amount of cheap tequila had ever made her feel as warm or unstable inside. She took a deep breath and could feel her heart beating even faster and if truth be told, it had not beat this hard for so long – so much so that it scared her as she closed her eyes and crossed her fingers as hard as she could, just like she had done as a child, sitting all alone on the floor of her tiny little bedroom, wishing that she could be just like all of those other girls who didn’t have a care in the world. You could go. You should go. Go. No. Don’t go. Stay. Please. Please stay. Just. This once. Swipe right. “Miss?”

The beautiful princess raised her head slowly and then opened her eyes to see the handsome frog gently staring back. She smiled shyly as she took the paper napkin from him, quickly popping the free sample into her mouth.

“These are delicious!” She lied – doing her best not to spit out the crumbs, all the while trying to chew the lump of cold spinach, congealed ricotta and soggy phyllo dough. “I’m so glad you like them. They’re on special this week. Twelve Ready-To-Serve appetizers for only $6.99.” It was as if he was looking directly into her soul. “Well, that certainly sounds like quite the bargain!” nodded the beautiful princess, choking down the last bite – then suddenly kicking herself for having used such a hokey-sounding word like “bargain” – “We got straw hats, ladies and gentleman, genuine straw hats in assorted colors and sizes, only one thin nickel!” “Well, that sounds like quite a bargain!”

Oh God, what the hell did you even say that for? Why can’t you just keep your mouth shut? You will never learn, do you? You should just crawl home, thought the beautiful princess, oh and by the way, the expression is “one thin dime”, not “one thin nickel” – dimes of course being the thinnest of the coins, the ones with the perfect bodies who flirt with strangers and stay out late on a weekday night. At least as far as American currency is concerned. I don’t know about the other countries. Maybe the French. The French seem to have an expression for everything. Truth be told, these are the things that I think about way too much and keep me awake long into the early morning.

You see, when I lived in a kingdom far, far away, there was a twenty-four hour superstore just up the street from me and on those nights when I couldn’t sleep, I would park my car in the empty lot, take a cart, just in case and walk up and down each aisle until I started to get tired again – past the margarita mix and the non-dairy creamer to the straw hats and party dresses, stopping to look at ice cube trays and pet supplies – oh, maybe I should get another dog – no, you’ve already learned that lesson, till I had moved onto the comic books and toys, oh look, Sea Monkeys – see, that’s better than a puppy, there’ll be less disappointment when I fail.

“I should be getting home” the beautiful princess said, finally breaking the silence. “It’s getting late and I have to work in the morning” she added solemnly. “Well, the sale ends next Sunday, so maybe I’ll see you before then” the handsome frog said hopefully, taking the crumpled paper napkin from her now trembling hand.

The beautiful princess could only whisper something softly to herself before quickly turning around to leave; her shopping cart accidentally bumping against the end of the card table, knocking a box of frozen hors oeuvres to the floor. “Oh, I’m so sorry” the beautiful princess who was now almost in tears, cried out as she bent down to pick up the box. “Don’t worry, I can get that” he said also bending down – the two now face-to-face with one another.

And as she looked into the kind and gentle green eyes of this handsome frog with the neck tattoos and silver platter, it was as if he was the only one who had been able to see something in her that she had never seen before – and there in that one moment, everything stopped – seven minutes that’s the rule – only there was no awkward silence, just the gentle hum coming from the wall of freezers.

“I hope you don’t think I’m being too forward,” she said, “but do you think that I might possibly just have one more before I checkout. You see, I really haven’t eaten since ..”

“Would you like to have dinner sometime?” asked the handsome frog.

“Yes. Yes, I would.”

And that, once upon a time, is how it all began. There, in the frozen foods aisle on a Tuesday night – the story of the princess (who as I said was not really a princess after all but would come in time to accept that truth and believe in herself) and how she met her handsome frog, the one who made her feel truly beautiful.

Their first date was a week later at one of those restaurants with a communal table and low wooden benches where the handsome frog kissed her hand and told her how beautiful she looked that night in her fancy party dress. And later on, as their relationship continued to grow, there would be disappointment and insecurity and even sadness as they awoke one morning to look down to the foot of the bed to discover that Francis the octopus had died.

But it was nothing that the two of them could not handle, now that they had found each other. And then a few months later after her weekly Pilates class when the beautiful princess mentioned that she had given the handsome frog a key to her tiny little blue house by the sea, Maureen from Accounting would ask “But, how do you know that he isn’t a serial killer or a convicted pedophile or a cashier at Big Lots?” And the beautiful princess just smiled.

“Because I know” she said, “And I always have.”