This Story May Be True

Once upon a time there was a queen who lived in a house on a quiet cul-de-sac. The queen was the mother of two princes and a princess.

While the king went to work every day ruling the kingdom and helping deaf and dizzy people and such, the queen spent her time battling her most fearsome foe-- Mess. Armed with a broom and a dust cloth, the Queen bravely fought day by day to overcome her mortal enemy.

Some days were better than others.

On one day, (we could call it last Monday), she planned a vicious attack in Mess's strongholds-- the children's rooms. It was an epic battle-- and the fate of the queen hung in the balance for a time, but finally she was victorious. At the end of the day, the rooms were clean and she was left with 6 bags of trash and 6 bags of items which she quickly took to Ye Olde Deseret Industries-- before Mess had the chance to reconquer the items and reclaim his territory.

She was tired, but proud of herself.

Until that night.

When it was time for Small Prince to go to bed, he suddenly noticed that something was missing from his bedroom. Out of all of the items that had fallen victim to the Great War, he noticed the absence of one red fury monster (we'll call it Elmo) that used to do the Hokey Pokey. This Elmo had belonged to his sister and had been in the Small Prince's room for a few years-- residing mostly under the bed. The queen had never seen her son play with the toy, and hence did not expect this reaction.

The small prince figured out quickly that his mother, the queen, had taken Elmo to the D.I. (Something similar MAY have happened before.) She tried to comfort him-- figuring that, if she could get him to go to sleep, he'd forget about it by morning.

She was wrong.

Throughout the next day, she often found the small prince with a sad look on his face. (Small Prince is very good at making sad faces.)

Small Prince missed Elmo terribly and began to experience what the queen could only assume was the stages of grief. Panicking and feeling guilty, as any mother would, she decided to mount a recovery operation.

She and the small prince went to the D.I. to search for the lost toy. She gave the expedition a snowflake's chance in hell, but as some say that hell may be made of ice, she thought they'd try.

Elmo was not to be found on any of the shelves. (Other very strange things were there, but we'll save that for another story.) The queen asked to see the manager of the store. She explained her predicament. He was not terribly helpful. In fact, he seemed to mock her for even thinking that perhaps she could recover the toy. He did, however, offer to take her name and number and "call if it turns up."

The queen tried to distract her son by taking him to a store to find another toy. Small Prince, being very wise for a five year old, saw through this ploy quickly. When they could not find another Hokey Pokey Elmo (apparently they stopped making those a while ago), Small Prince looked up at his mother and said,

"You see mom? Wouldn't it have been better if you would have listened to me and not taken my stuff to the D.I.? You would have saved yourself all of this trouble." Well, really it sounded more like "twubble", because Small Prince still can't say his "r"s and his mother thinks it's cute and doesn't really want him to learn yet.

She took his hand and told him how sorry she was and how everybody makes mistakes. Small Prince looked up at the queen and said, "Yeah, even moms. Sometimes they make wee-lly (really) big ones."

The queen thought this might be a teaching moment, so she tried to explain to Small Prince how when we are really sad, we can pray and Heavenly Father can help us to feel better in our hearts. Small Prince looked at his mother and said, "My heart is too torn up for that."

The queen didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. She took the small prince home and, as penance for her crimes, played video games with him for a very long hour and a half.

The queen formulated a plan. As there may be spies out to get her secrets, she will only mention that she is searching for Hokey Pokey Elmo on ebay. Wish her luck.

Meanwhile, Small Prince keeps hoping that the nice man at Ye Olde D.I. will call to say he found Elmo. He is trying to forgive his mother. In fact, Small Prince even let his mother rock him to sleep tonight-- something which he hasn't done for years.

Small Prince is growing up. He starts kindergarten this week. The queen knows that he is ready, but she thinks that she is not. She is not ready to be the Queen-Whose-Children-All-Go-To-School yet (even if it means that she can ride her bike more often.)

This could be a rough week for the queen...