dream | The Pleasantries of Princess Pricklepants

Princess Pricklepants was sitting around not writing blog posts. She got the internet working on her semi-new laptop, braced herself to write something, then checked Wikipedia to look up something about procrastination, to maybe understand it better. Four hours later she had finished many Wikipedia articles, culminating with methods of weaving with a loom. It was really surprisingly interesting.

She had to write. Write, write, write. Something. Something original. Worth reading. Fun. Engaging. Witty. Clever. The Great American Novel of blog posts. Better punctuated than this. And, ideally, with more verbs and fewer sentence fragments. Maybe a little less self-referential. Maybe not.

She decided to go for a little walk. On her walk, she discovered something truly remarkable. Behind the place where her desk was, at the very spot where she’d once peed on the floor, there was a mysterious doorway. The sign said it led to a secret garden, though you could read that yourself.

She hurried through to the other side. No photos were taken in order to protect the mystery.

The other side was truly mysterious. Amid IKEA furnishings stood whimsical fantasy elements, seemingly put together haphazardly. This was very puzzling. Also why was the radio up where she couldn’t reach it? Why was it playing Enya songs? Why did the door look the same on both sides? Why did it have a sign up saying it led to a secret place? Wouldn’t that very sign mean it wasn’t secret? Curiouser and curiouser.

Then she realized, this would make a great blog post!

A really great one!

But first she had to find the hidden treasure.

Treasure!

She decided she would read a Wikipedia article on narrative structure, perhaps there was a way to give her post a clear beginning, middle, and end.

Hedgehogs and humans don’t always react the same way to things. Reading an article on narrative structure was so incredibly exciting for a hedgehog. When she found tvtropes, it was so exciting to a budding hedgehog blogger that she peed a little on the floor.

And then she woke up in her favorite green blanket. It was all just a dream.

But wait, waking up in the green blanket was all a dream too. She woke up, peeked out of her cuddle bag, and planned for her real blog post, rather than the dream one.

And, dear readers, we’re very sorry that we had that brief hiatus. Princess would like you to know that she loves you this much:

Previously Part 1, Part 2.

Now begins part 3 of our travelogue, heading on the final stretch, over the river and through the woods to Grandmothers’s house. It was a long drive, so Fancy made good use of the time rehearsing for his role in Annoying Private Ryan:

Still nailing it!

Alabama has a welcome center too, we are sensing a pattern. The first thing we find is a phone booth, a strange relic from the lost past of telephony. Maybe it is a time machine! Princess attempted to communicate with it, but found it strangly unresponsive. Fancy tried to help, but also found it unresponsive. Princess wanted to change into a superhero costume in the phone booth, but we didn’t bring any superhero costumes with us, so Princess and Fancy just played in the booth for a while instead.

Next to the booth was a large concrete monolith with an inspirational saying on it. Fancy thought it must have been placed there by a fellow pet’s rights activist – the persecution of pet’s rights and the sinister signage of institutionalized pet prejudice is an injustice Fancy hopes to overcome some day. He has a dream. Fancy is sure that concrete block is meant to inspire pets everywhere to fight the peculiar and perversely pernicious idea of defending the idea that it’s a “right” to keep pets from visiting visitor centers. Fight the power, hedgehogs, you have nothing to lose but your leashes!

Princess bristled at Marxist undertones of Fancy’s proclamations. As a member of the aristocracy she feels torn. Fancy thought it best to change the topic, since it was a bit of a prickly subject.

“Cousin Phil?”

There were some lovely holly bushes, so we posed Princess in front of them and got this super lucky photo of Princess waving! Whoah!

Once again we met our old nemesis. Rather than explaining with complicated words and sentences why this is bad, we didn’t.

Princess and Fancy were both appalled.

Fancy can be quite the activist…

Is this what happens when a puppet has nothing left to lose? Pushed to the edge, will Fancy, once a mild-mannered and law abiding puppet, become a rule-breaker?

Clearly.

Fancy even turned to handing out brochures he wasn’t authorized to dispense!

And engaged in doing whatever it is that’s happening here.

The breakdown into anarchy continued. Princess turned from her mild mannered rigid authoritarianism to anarchy to the point that *she went past the NO PETS ALLOWED sign*! At this point things were careening off. Princess even tried to climb into that little buttoned down spot on my collar that there was no way she’d ever fit into.