“They’re just cute little movies,” my wife said, uttering a sentence that ushered in a new era. Soon ESPN would be dethroned, and princess programing would rule the domain inside our television screen.
The first cute little movie was The Princess Switch. One actress plays two princesses who look alike. Both princesses find their prince charmings and live happily ever after—meaning they live happily ever after until The Princess Switch: Switched Again, the sequel in which the same actress plays all the important characters, more or less, and everybody lives happily ever after again.
That is, until the tragic events of The Princess Switch 3. Aliens abduct the princess, clone her, and then invade earth with a force of identical princess warriors, all of whom are played by the same actress and live happily ever after (to be honest, I slept through The Princess Switch 3 and just guessed at the plot.) But whatever the plot, my wife thoroughly enjoyed the movie and was left craving more princess programming.
“Can’t we just buy a second TV?” I asked. “That way you can watch your princess shows, and I can watch football.”
“No, we’re already over budget on Christmas this year,” she replied, “and TVs are sky high because of inflation.”
Ugh, inflation. Because of rising costs of socks and underwear, I had to watch four seasons of The Crown, which is chock full of the story of Princess Diana. By the fourth season Agent Scully from the X-files shows up. I got excited because I thought there might actually be an alien subplot, but alas Agent Scully was just playing Margaret Thatcher. Meanwhile, Princess Diana does not live happily ever after as it turns out. Of course, I could have told my wife that much, but she insisted on watching it anyway.
Then my wife went medieval and started watching The Spanish Princess. It’s about Catherine of Aragon and based on real life events in Europe in the Middle Ages. Best I can tell, people didn’t do much back then, other than stand around a castle and scheme. Every fifteen minutes they interrupt the scheming for some regularly scheduled lovemaking. Likely that was the best way to stay warm in those drafty castles.
All this princess programming is taking its toll. Last night I found my wife asleep on the couch as the Spanish Princess streamed onward. Being a kind and loving husband, I let her slumber peacefully and gently caressed her hand.
Success! She released the remote. Then I paused Catherine of Aragon, lowered the volume, and reinstalled the masters of the gridiron to their rightful place atop the TV cabinet—even if only for a temporary reign.
