May 31: Horsed Around, Daughter, Fairy Tale Friday

We horsed around a little bit in the cab on the way to the theater.  At first she didn't want to, because she had her lipstick on and all, but I was being seductive as hell and she didn't have any alternative...

Holden is a teenage boy.  Therefore, Holden is hormonal, which is a polite way of saying horny.  He hits on many girls and women in Catcher, including tourists in a bar, the mother of a classmate, and Sally in the above passage.  Even though he's headed toward a mental breakdown, he still lets his little head do his thinking at many points in the book.

I have an almost teenaged daughter.  She's very moody.  Sometimes she's my sweet little princess, and sometimes she's Linda Blair in The Exorcist.  I haven't had to deal with the boy-crazy side of puberty yet.  Either she's hiding it well from me, or it hasn't kicked in.  Let me tell you, though, I'm not looking forward to the drama and heartbreak of teenage love.

It is Friday, and I owe you a fairy tale this morning.  So...

Once upon a time, a humble, beloved man ruled over a far northern kingdom where snow covered the fields and roads for nine months of the year.  The man's name was King Marty.

King Marty was renowned as being a kind, gentle monarch, and he had a beautiful, twelve-year-old daughter named Princess Regan.  Princess Regan had deep auburn hair and dark eyes.  All the boys in the region loved her.  Several times a day, King Marty answered the drawbridge only to find some horny young shepherd or field hand asking to talk to Princess Regan.  While King Marty was a benevolent man, he grew impatient with these hormonal visitors.

One day, after a pimply apprentice blacksmith tried crossing the moat wearing only a thong, King Marty'd had enough.  "That's it," he declared.  "I'm tired of all these sweaty suitors.  From this day forward, Princess Regan will be sealed in the north castle tower.  She shall only study music and dance and poetry, and no person with a penis shall be allowed in her presence until she turns the age of 33!"

And so it was done.  Princess Regan was sealed away from the kingdom's lecherous boys.  Her hair was kept short so no wandering prince could climb her braid into the tower, and she excelled in her schooling, becoming the smartest, most beautiful woman in the land.

King Marty slept soundly every night, and Princess Regan thanked him every day for what he had done, saying, "Thank you, sir, for being the kindest, wisest, most handsome father in the universe."

The moral of this tale:  Don't nobody mess with my daughter!

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

Stay out of my tower!