Are you sitting comfortably? Yes?
I don’t care, get the hell out of my chair.
Now, I shall begin…
Once upon a time, back when people were particularly stupid, there lived a young couple.
The woman (they never bothered to name her because she doesn’t feature in story for long) was pregnant.
The couple were ever so happy but there was one problem, Woman had sadly been completely overwraught by her hormones and, to coin a medical phrase, was bat-shit crazy.
Two problems, actually, the couple lived next door to a wicked enchantress.
They had tried to move, but all the abracadabra and waking up as frogs had driven property prices through the floor, so they were scuppered.
Where the hell was I? Oh, right, hormones.
Now as you may know, pregnant women often suffer terrible cravings and it just so happens that Woman was desperately craving Rapunzel.
Um…oh, sorry, i’ve messed that bit up.
She was craving rapunzel fruit, Rapunzel hasn’t been born at this point so it’s not the cannibalistic nightmare that I thought.
What the hell is a rapunzel fruit, anyway? Ah well, no matter.
The enchantress had some fine rapunzel fruit and so strong were her cravings, that the Husband Of Woman decided to sneak in to the enchantresses garden at night for the most dangerous scrumping trip of all time.
He escaped without having his face and backside magically switched and brought home the…oh, I see, it’s not a fruit at all it’s a plant.
Wow, they used to use it like spinach, that’s quite…hmm?
Sorry, I was Googling, back to the story.
So, Husband brought home the rapunzel plant and the cheeky bint that he’s married to gobbles the lot in one sitting and asks him to go back the next night.
Never mind the likelihood that the enchantress will turn him inside out if she catches him, wifey needs her leaves.
So, instead of divorcing the crazy bitch, he dutifully climbs back over the delightful picket fencing that seperates their garden from the Realm Of Dark Magicks and grabs another handful of the leaves.
Miraculously, he escapes once again and swears never to ret…oh, wait.
No, no the cow asks him to go back again the next night.
Jesus Christ man, grow a pair and say no!
He doesn’t, surely?
What? Oh sorry, reading ahead again.
Well I can only imagine this lady is a dynamo in the sack because Husband is willing to lay his life on the line to please her whims.
Off he trots and shock bloody horror, this time the enchantress catches him.
Now, she’s threatening to lay some serious magical ass-kickings on him and he’s whining like a little bitch and then, out of the blue, she demands his unborn child.
This is seriously messed up, she’s going to let him go but only if they hand over the sprog the minute his wife pops.
He says yes, just like that, “absolutely m’lady would you like me to kill and roast the child for you?”.
I’m guessing he then goes home, grabs his shotgun and…oh hell they actually do it.
The minute the nipper is born they pack her off to the enchantress and that’s all the dealings we have with that pair of muppets.
The young girl, whom the enchantress names Rapunzel to really rub salt into the wounds, grows up to be the most beautiful girl in the land.
This leads to a massive bitch fight between her and Snow White but that’s another story.
Anyway, there’s Rapunzel, gorgeous and hairy.
Well, not hairy like a Wookie, obviously, but she’s got ridiculously long blonde hair.
Now, the ench…look, i’m going to start calling her Jane, OK?
Now, Jane, for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, locks Rapunzel in a tall tower which has no stairs, no door and only one window.
I know, right? Seems like a massive pain in the arse to me.
Everytime Jane goes to visit Rapunzel, to bring food and gallons of shampoo, she calls up to the window…
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, that I may climb the golden stair”
Rapunzel then wraps her hair around a hook and lets her stupidly long locks tumble out of the window.
The hook is a good idea, huh?
I mean, if she didn’t do that, Jane would most likely just pull Rapunzel clean out of the window the moment she started climbing.
Anyway, Jane straps all the supplies to her back and drags herself up the side of the tower.
I’ve got to say, if I was a great and powerful enchantress I would most likely teleport into the tower, or fly, or zap up a freaking staircase, but ho hum.
Jane reaches the top, visits with Rapunzel for a while, ignores her feeble pleas for freedom and then clambers back down Rapunzels hair to the bottom of the tower.
This is ol’ Punzy’s life, miserable isn’t it?
So she does what any half crazed prisoner of a psychotic witch lady would do.
She sits by the window, brushing her hair and singing.
One day, a handsome prince wanders by and hears this beautiful voice
He rushes immediately to the source and there, at the top of this impossibly tall tower, his unfeasibly powerful eyes spy the beautiful Rapunzel.
He falls instantly in love with her and begins searching for the door to the tower.
Saddened and more than a little confused by the lack of a door, he settles back into the bushes in true stalker fashion and waits for the answer to present itself.
Look, i’m not saying he was definitely masturbating in the bushes but it seems like a logical conclusion and i’d really like to avoid reading any more of this drivel.
No? Fine, we’ll press on.
Eventually, Jane comes wandering through the woods with two large drums of conditioner and calls up to Rapunzel.
Recognising the stup…secret code phrase, Rapunzel wings her hair out of the window and waits for Jane to climb up before pulling it back in.
A thought occurs, wouldn’t you wait until Jane was halfway up and then cut your damn hair?
Send that bippity-boppity-bitch crashing down to the ground then get to work on knotting some bedsheets?
Good grief, Rapunzel was incredibly stupid.
Well, anyway, the prince now knows the secret phrase and the moment Jane leaves he pulls his trousers up and moves to the base of the tower.
He calls up “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, throw down a chair”
He stops “No, that wasn-THWACK”
Laid out under the weight of a heavy, wooden stool, he wakes up some time later with a sore head and a determined look.
“RAPUNZEL, RAPUNZEL, LET DOWN YOUR HAIR!”
Moments later, Rapunzels long golden locks spill from the towers single window and the prince begins his long climb.
He meets Rapunzel, they fall madly in love and live happily ever after.
Depending on which version of the story you’re reading.
In many versions, the one that i’ve read, Jane turns up, enraged by this princes impudence and flings him from the top of the tower.
He somehow survives the fall but the thorns, oh yeah there are thorns around the base, rip his eyes out.
His eyes. Torn out. By thorns.
Christ on a crutch, they expect us to read this stuff to kids?!
Anyway, he goes staggering blindly into the forest and Jane turns on Rapunzel.
She tears her hair clean off her head and sends baldilocks out into the cold night.
For whatever reason, Rapunzel doesn’t follow the prince who set off just moments ago, couldn’t give a crap about him bleeding to death from the ragged holes where his eyes once were.
No, she sods off into the woods, builds a cottage or something and ekes out a meagre existence, living off the land.
Evidently Jane was kind enough to allow her some TV time and she watched nothing but Bear Grylls repeats.
The prince, meanwhile, miraculously staves off serious infection or death by hemorrhage and wanders the forest for months living on what he hopes to christ are nuts and berries.
That’s one prince who ate a lot of rabbit dropping, that’s all i’m saying.
One day, he hears Rapunzel singing as she’s knocking up a windmill out of tree branches squirrel tendons and plunges headlong through the woods, towards the source of the sound.
Finally, he stumbles out into a clearing and sadly fails to be eaten by bears.
No, Rapunzel is there and this time they really do live happily ever after.
Seriously, really happily, her tears have actual magical powers and cure his blindness.
I suppose they probably go back to his kingdom or something after that, though to be fair Rapunzel has probably built a better palace out of bear hide and guano.
The End, thankfully.
