November 16, 2011

One night, while I was doing the dishes, Finnley was valiantly protecting me from dragons; which I was naturally very grateful for. Dragons are sneaky creatures, and you never know what will creep up on you while you’re elbow-deep in soap bubbles.

He was not a Knight, though. He was a Prince.

In fact, he was no ordinary Prince—he was a very “clever Prince.” He insisted that the Prince always destroyed the dragon better than the Knight because he got the hoes from the tower.

I said, “you get what from the tower?” He said… “the Prince has to get the hoes from the tower. That’s why I can kill the dragon because I’m the only one that can get the hoes from the high tower.” Hrrrmmmm?

So I asked him to elaborate… not alluding to the fact that I thought his explanation sounded suspiciously vulgar. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but he does tend to occasionally pick up too much (he doesn’t yet understand) from his daddy’s choice music lyrics when he doesn’t hit ‘next’ fast enough in the iPod shuffle.

Finally, he demonstrated proper dragon slaying in a deliberate, elaborate choreography, leaping and tumbling across the vast dragon dwelling, otherwise known as the kitchen. The struggle with the imaginary, fiery beast was comically intense, right down to the final blow. As he puffed up his chest and promenaded back to kiss the hand of this particularly impressed maiden, it all made perfect sense.

OF COURSE, you can defeat a dragon with a hose!

He is a clever one. You can imagine my relief that the tower had a ‘hose.’ And with that, the Prince and I finished the dishes, and the dishpan dragon faded into the recesses of our imaginations, ready and waiting for the next fateful battle.