Baiting the Universe

I don't know why but the universe is clearly not getting the message that I am a princess. I am sleeping on a mattress with not just one tiny uncomfortable pea wedged in it but--with how things have been going lately--a whole garden of peas. Not comfy at all.

So things have been sucky. Owning your own business is hard. Having a landscape business during a drought? Well, let's just say things could be better if it were wetter.

I have been wondering though, quite out loud, lately as to why the universe seems to be missing my obvious entitlement. And I think perhaps it is my fault. I am thinking I have some how misled the universe---wise as it is-- and it was unable to pick up on my, I think, obvious princesseness. Or perhaps I have not acted the princess that I mostly definitely feel that I am. I don't know. Sigh. What to do, what to do. . .

While I was out for my run today I ran past some men fishing in a pond and I had the proverbial "duh" moment. It was then that I realized that fishing might be why the universe might not know I am a princess. It makes perfect sense. Why just the other day Carmella--our resident princess expert--told me that princesses do not fish. She explained that this is because they would smell stinky and everyone knows, if nothing else, a princess is most definitely not stinky.

So that must be why the universe didn't know I was princess. No not because I am stinky--well I am after I go running and stuff but I was referring to the fishing part.

See when I was little I use to love to fish in the pond next my neighborhood. I would make a pole out of a stick and some borrowed fishing line and a hook from Dad's tackle box. Then I would get a can of corn out of the pantry as I could not stand the live bait. And everyone knows fish are smart enough to not want a rubber worm. So corn it was.

Then I would spend all afternoon catching brim. I would marvel at their glittering reflective scales and prickly fin that they would throw up laughably in defense. I know they are ugly fish but I liked them and I would take them home intent to keep them as pets. I would put them in this old fashioned heavy glass box. It was fancy. Not sure if it was a proper fish tank or not but that is what I used it for. Usually the brim would die after a few days and I would throw them in the creek in our yard--giving them a proper fish funeral -- but more often my mom would make me march back to the pond and dump them back in. I am guessing I probably caught the same fishes all summer long.

When I was older we moved into a house on a lake. And there, because I was the girl who had a private lake in her backyard, I spent my summers pretending to like to fish for the sake of some boyfriend or another. Ugh! I am just embarrassed when I think back to those wasted hours I sat in a canoe being told to shush--I might scare the bass away--as I tried to feign interest while the love of my life dujour waxed on romantically about his love for fishing. I think that this is where the universe assumed I was not on the path to all things princess.

But wait, it gets worse because then I had a boyfriend who tried to seduce me with the romance of fly fishing. We are talking trout here. Sure they have rainbows and are sparkly but really it is just a fish. Fish are not sexy. At all. I don't care how long your pole is and what sort of fly you got on your hook. That vest and that hat and those waders? Not doing it for me. Undeterred though he tried to lure me into the sport; saying it was like a graceful ballet and that making those little "flies" were a zen like experience. He tossed his lines and River Whyed me all day long. Time though proved that there was no grace in my tangled lines and fashioning flies was more a study in tediousness than zen for me. But whatever. Moving on.

In my defense I will say that in the end I thankfully married a man who does not like to fish. Well, except deep sea fishing and honestly that is something I can dip my toes in a little. But that is only because I like boats. Carmella said princesses like boats. Big fancy boats to be sure. Not canoes.

But here I find myself in yet another summer and I am fishing again. To be certain I am not fashioning a pole out of found stick and borrowed line and hook but instead out of random thoughts and optimism. I am stringing wistful sentences and plea bargains-- baiting the universe, if you will, and tossing my line out there. And I do not want any ugly old brims or big mouth bass or rainbow trouts hanging on my hooks. Instead, I am hoping that I will finally reel in that glittering crown and my entitlement but damn it at the very least I am just praying that I catch a big fat break.