Grimm's Millennial Fairy Tales - 001: The Frog Prince (or: White Girls Be Trippin’)
Read the original here.
In the year 2017 - when it was still cool to have an opinion and a fake Twitter profile - there lived an upper middle class white guy with a handful of daughters who were beautiful, but sadly they knew this. The youngest, in high school, was so beautiful that the sun would look down at her and think, “Hmm...I wonder what she looks like under that pound of mascara and lipstick.” Near their 1892 Colonial Revival home in New England, there was this super cute water fountain at the end of a cul de sac. When it was a warm day, the youngest daughter, Molli (yeah, with an “i”) would go to the fountain and chill. She’d pull out her iPhone X, silver, check her social medias, solidify her popularity pedestal, maybe troll a fugly girl or two.
This was her favorite pastime.
There came a day when Molli was bashing the shit out of Jennifer Connelly, tweeting that her hair was “a cross between a Pyrex bowl and beaver roadkill,” when a guy in his mid-thirties went racing past her on a Razor electric motorized scooter. He came too close, trying to maybe drift the corner, and Molli flinched, surprised as hell. Up went the $1,000+ device, screen bright in the sunlight. And down it came, plunking into the pool of water behind her.
She watched as the phone floated slowly to the bottom. My life is over, she thought sincerely. Molli almost shouted, “Pervert” at the deadbeat zooming away from her, but she decided she had used that one too many times this quarter. Tears flowed freely, and Molli couldn’t even.
“Why are you crying, Molli?” She jumped again at the voice, and turned to see Robby Evans, a pimply, scrawny sophomore to Molli’s junior status. One of her regular troll victims, Molli thought he looked like a frog.
But right now was no time to be malevolent.
“My phone,” Molli wept, “it fell in the fountain. Some d-bag lowlife scared me and I just lost it.” She gazed back to the electronic, bubbles rising to the water’s surface. “It’s an iPhone X. I just got it. Why does everything happen to me?”
“Fear not, sexy lady,” said Robby, trying to be cool, which was sad. “I can get it back for you.”
“You...you can?”
“Sure,” Robby replied. He had a devious smile. “But what’s in it for me?”
“Anything,” Molli immediately blurted out. “I have money.” - her parents have money - “I can give you any of my old iPhones. An Amazon gift card. Whatever, I need it back!”
“How about being my girlfriend?”
Molli took a step backward. “Say what?”
Robby continued his wish. “You go out with me. We talk in the halls, we hold hands in class, in due time we can get to second base. I’ll watch you practice volleyball, you can come to my math competitions. We’ll be a couple. An ‘item,’ as the old people say.”
Molli almost laughed her butt off, but she stopped herself. How much did her phone really mean to her?
“Alright,” she accepted with chagrin. Truthfully, she could date Robby Evans for a week then dump his ass like fourth period AP Biology. Besides, what nonsense! How could Robby think he had a chance with the best girl at school?
Giddy with glee, he jumped right into the fountain, stumbling to stay upright. The fountain splashed his pock-marked face, sending him reeling backwards. It took him 45 seconds, but finally he managed to retrieve the iPhone.
Dripping wet and smiling like a dipshit, Robby gripped the phone with confidence. “A bowl of dry rice and a couple hours and she’ll be good as new!”
Molli snatched her wet phone from Robby and said, “Thanks dude.” She began to walk away.
“Hey, wait up!” Robby huffed and hobbled to catch Molli. “Shouldn’t we, idk, go get Starbucks or something?”
This time, Molli did laugh. “Oh Robby. Tbh, do you really think people will believe you and I have the hots for each other? C’mon.” She left him to ponder this and continued down the road.
The next day, fall began ceremoniously with a torrential downpour. The rain fell heavy as Molli, her older sisters (a senior, a full-ride Yale student, and a newly-minted Penthouse “model”), and her daddy ate dinner. They were all busy ignoring their father by being on their iPhone X’s when the doorbell rang. Molli’s dad instructed Molli to please answer the door. After saying it three times and then actually texting her the command, Molli went to peep through the peephole.
It was Robby.
Despite the hefty amount of rouge on her cheeks, she went pale as Jennifer Conlley on a good day. She quickly went back to the table without answering the door. Her father noticed this and asked her why she seemed so afraid. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“I wish,” said Molli. “It was Robby Evans.”
“Ew!” This was her senior sister. “What does that toad want?”
She told the table what happened yesterday. The sisters stifled giggles, but Molli’s dad had this look that said, Wow. Just wow.
“Molli, you better go answer that door right now. A promise is a promise, and I will not be known for raising a woman who goes back on her word.”
A bunch of groaning and “you never listen” later, Molli and Robby were face to face. Robby was drenched again, this time from the rain. He unfolded a soggy piece of paper, then did the most pathetic thing the twenty-first century has ever seen - he recited an original rap song (because poems were lame):
“I’m high off Molli,
Supposed to be you and me.
What’s a promise to you?
Nothing, as I can see.
I’m high of Molli,
But she’s too high to be with me.”
Unfortunately, everybody heard this in his white boy rap voice. The raucous laughter carried to the front door easily. Blushing, Robby stood his ground.
Molli felt her iPhone in her pocket. After doing what Robby said, it worked like brand new. She sighed, knowing she had to repay him somehow. Besides, maybe she could swing this as a beauty-is-on-the-inside-take-him-to-prom-for-charity kind of deal. Like Taylor Swift or something.
“Fine. One date. Make it classy. Friday, 7 PM.” Before he could respond, Molli shut the door.
On Friday, during lunch, Molli was hanging with the popular group like normal. They were talking about how awesome they looked and how the new Demi Lovato song was “hella deep,” when Robby came up to them, stared directly at Molli, and said, “See you tonight, sweet thing.” Then he left, as if he hadn’t just totally ruined Molli’s reputation. Embarrassed beyond all reason, Molli followed Robby down the hall and pushed him into the girl’s bathroom.
“What is wrong with you, dweeb? You dumbass, you’ve ruined me!” And with that, she hurled her iPhone at Robby’s head.
Before it got to his face, however, something changed. Suddenly Robby Evans face cleared up. Not a zit to be seen. A quick flex and his hoodie ripped open, revealing a perfectly-toned bod. Molli could swear he grew about three inches. When he finally caught the device, Robby Evans was no longer Robby Evans, but a teenage girl’s wet dream.
“Now, now,” Robby said with a voice that had dropped two octaves in two minutes, “We wouldn’t want this to break, would we?”
Turns out, Robby had been cursed by a witch called Adolescence, and he couldn’t be released from this awkward prison until the prettiest girl in school noticed him. He actually worked out daily, had a charming smile, perfect facial features, and the smarts to go with it - he was going to go to Harvard a year early.
All Molli comprehended was how she was the prettiest girl in school.
So they became an “item,” held together by a thread of surface-level attraction. They went to homecoming together, bare all (which was fine with Molli ‘cause Robby was hawt as balls now). At the dance, Molli and Robby were approached by a tall, gangly boy, scratching his crotch and whatnot. Turns out, it was Robby’s grade school friend Henry. Henry had always been Robby’s wingman, but when Adolescence hit Robby hard, Henry knew only some prissy full-of-herself drama queen would break his pubescent spell. And so Henry stood vigil, cladding himself in sweatpants until Robby broke free of the chains of body odor and insta-hardons.
Henry shook hands with Molli - who ignored the “prissy full-of-herself drama queen” jab. Then he embraced Robby, which was humorous due to Robby’s massive LATs. And he went about his business, shedding his sweats in the process. Thank God he’s wearing shorts, Molli thought. “He’s a weirdo.”
“Yeah,” said Robby, flexing his biceps and flashing his gorgeous eyes at Molli, “but he’s my weirdo. Hey, let’s take a selfie.”
With that, they lived happily ever after...for about three months. Then they broke up.
The end