Even princesses get stressed

The Gallant Hero was worried about his Princess. For days she had neither slept nor talked while she labored under the heavy burden of fixing a manuscript (although it did not seem to affect her appetite). She did not step foot outside the castle. When she did talk, she said alarming things that his beloved Prissy Princess would never say, like "I'd rather be doing laundry!" The Hero was afraid to leave her side, afraid she might do something drastic, like...paint the basement.

The Hero had stated noticing little paint samples lying around the castle. He wasn't too worried at first, because the Prissy Princess had adamantly declared that the rest of the painting in the castle would be done by a professional, that she was sick of painting and would never again dirty her prissy little hands with a paintbrush.

As the paint samples grew in number, his concern grew along with them. He studied the colors. They were dark. Moody. Not happy colors. The Hero liked happy colors. Finally he ventured to ask what the paint samples meant.

"Oh," said the Princess, "I was thinking of painting the basement."

His worst fears were realized. She was delirious! The stress of her job was getting so overwhelming that even painting, which she loathed, seemed an escape.

"But I thought you wanted to hire someone to do the rest of the castle," he reminded her, attempting to restore some semblance of sanity to her work-ravaged brain.

"Well, it would just be an experiment," she said, shrugging. "To see if I really like the color. If not, we could pick something else."

Now she was thinking of painting twice? This was not like his Prissy Princess at all. He must put a stop to this. Not only would the novelty of painting wear off quickly for the Princess, she would also make a huge mess in the basement. And if there was one thing the Hero hated, it was people making a mess where HE wanted to make a mess. The basement was HIS turf, his place to return to his primal male instinct to cut up boards and put them together, spreading sawdust everywhere. And he had not long ago declared his intention to start experimenting on the walls himself -- not with paint, but with a sledgehammer. Behind those walls, he was convinced, lurked beautiful stone and brick, possibly a fireplace -- things generations of ancestors had touched and used. He meant to find them.

So the Hero tried another tack. "It's expensive to just start experimenting with paint," he said.

"Well, maybe I could just do one wall," she said. "Not get a whole gallon. I was thinking I could...." The Prissy Princess droned on excitedly, outlining her plan for messing up HIS plan with her painting.

Desperate, he interrupted her. "Wouldn't you rather be doing laundry?"

She looked at him as if he were the one who was delirious. Then she nodded knowingly, as if she'd read his mind. "Don't worry," she said. "I won't get in the way of your sledgehammering."