Evidence That Your Life Is a Fairy Tale, Ranked

by Lisa K. Buchanan

28. You are torn apart by wild horses, rolled down a hill in a barrel of nails, boiled in oil, locked into a heavy trunk and thrown into the sea.

27. You dance to your death in red-hot iron shoes.

26. You melt in the incinerator flames, just out of your lover’s reach.

25. Your mother abandons you to a forest of ravenous wolves.

24. Your stepmother decapitates your brother, then ties his head on with a scarf so you will think it’s your fault when you smack him gently and his head falls off.

23. Your father chops off your hands because you won’t mate with him.

22. You chop off your own hands so your brother won’t want to mate with you.

21. You chop your sister into bits and bury her right eye.

20. Birds peck out your eyes.

19. You’re speechless because you’ve sold your voice.

18. You’re speechless with starvation and acute hypothermia.

17. Your voice is the howling of the wind.

16. Your mother in-law strangles your newborns while you sleep, smears their blood on your lips, and tells your husband you tried to devour them. (The stew does indeed taste funny.)

15. A little gray man forces you to suck his “finger.”

14. You’re adopted, so it’s kind of okay that your dad wants to mate with you.

13. You long to mate with a frolicking weasel.

12. A “finger” prick causes a century-long swoon.

11. A married prince knocks you up while you’re asleep in a tower.

10. You give birth to seven babies, one each day for a week.

9. The prince’s mother is a child-eating ogress.

8. Your prince shits the bed.

7. A severed “finger” lands in your lap.

6. Your lips are as red as blood, your skin is as white as snow, and you’re insufferable.

5. You’ve lobbed the slimy frog against the wall and splattered his guts.

4. Your talking cat growls like Roy Orbison.

3. Your prince has tender paws and a penis with a knot that swells inside you.

2. The mirror on the wall does you shaggy and red-eyed with pointy cuspids.

1. The beast in the bed is you.