Saving The Princess
Women tear each other down a lot, and there are plenty of stories about the horrible things we do and say to one another. This is not one of those stories. This is about Saving The Princess. It’s a mildly embarrassing we’ve-all-been-there story involving both rescuing and being rescued and the inherent value in each.
Call it White Knight Syndrome. Blame Mario. But at one point in our early, developmental years, we were all trained that the right thing to do is to Save The Princess.

I’m a big believer in karma and I ALWAYS wanna Save the Princess.
I, myself, have been The Princess more than a handful of times, and I’d easily be dead or worse (think about it) if it weren’t for my heroes…
For example, the time I decided to attend my first official party as a newly single woman. I arrived with zero food in my belly and zero idea of my own alcohol tolerance. I lost my phone first, then the party started to spin and I got really sick. Somewhere in some bushes. I was dressed as Little Red Riding Hood all I really remember is a wolf holding my hair back.
I might’ve just been left there, another Red Solo Cup Casualty in the night. But instead, Elizabeth came to my rescue. Elizabeth was an honest to god Las Vegas Showgirl. She’s a tall sexy stunner and anyone would be lucky to take her home. Instead, she took me home. This elegant, beautiful girl who “sorta knew me from work” drove me home, helped me up the stairs and literally tucked me into bed. I shamefully guzzled the massive glass of water she’d brought me as she called the party and made sure my phone had been located. I could hear the host turn the music off and issue threats to turn the lights on unless my phone appeared.
It did. It had a few photos of unfamiliar weiners on it, but it was safe and some other friends (the wolves) would bring it to me. I couldn’t understand why they were so nice to me. Eventually, I learned that it’s a matter of doing the right thing, but this is some above and beyond next-level shit. They saved me.
Elizabeth and those dear Wolves have fucking #HEROSTATUS and we should all be so lucky. Someday, I hope I can help them, too, but that’s the odd thing about kindnesses given — they’re very tricky to return to sender. One almost never gets to tit for tat. Or even weiner for tat. So we do what we can and when a Princess needs our help, we remember. We strap on our overalls. And we pay it forward.

My chance finally came a few years later, at an unexpected time at a restaurant job. My friend Kris and I were the Veteran Servers, charged that night with training two newbies.
When Kris and I clocked in that night, I saw our friend Staci crying in the arms of her friend Kelsey. I shot the “everything OK?” look and got a reassuring nod from Kels. I mean, we all have nights like that, so, I went on about my super-important task of teaching the Noobs how to restock Sweet n Low.
Later, Kelsey (the crying girl’s friend) found me and asked if I could please check on Staci, (the crying girl) who had apparently holed up in the bathroom. Sure, I said, no worries. But then Kelsey grabbed me by my shoulders and looked directly into my soul. “Just… prepare yourself, OK?”
Uhhh… k…?
I mean, I was expecting a little puke, but I was NOT ready for the Roman Empire Vomitorium that had become the ladies room. Like, vomit everywhere, right? But NO — there’s a difference between “everywhere” and EVVVVVRYWHERE.

Staci, who is normally a lovely, poised, graceful kind of girl, was sitting on the toilet, fully clothed and pants pulled up, which should have made me happy except for the fact that she was COVERED chin-to-toes in half-digested noodles. And what looked like carrots. With like, some curry or something. I making this sound way better than it smelled.
Normal people, when they throw up, kneel before their porcelain god and politely hurl into the bowl. A dainty “technicolor yawn.” Staci had somehow managed to sit on the seat and scooched her tailbone all the way back to the tank, then thrown up allllllll down the front of her shirt. Her hair. Her arms. Her hands. And somehow also her legs, shoes, and floor. It is still beyond me how that much barf came out of one girl.
HOLY FUCK I said, or something tactful along those lines, then went for water, towels, and back-up. I discreetly informed Kris (my bestie) that she needed to stand patrol outside the ladies room and under no circumstances were any managers to go inside.
Ummm… k? she said, and I knew she wasn’t getting me so I grabbed her by the shoulders and stare into her soul and echo Kelsey: “Just… prepare yourself, OK?”
When I returned with hot towels, Kris was considerably more blanched than when I’d left her. We reached over a small pond of puke to wipe Staci’s face. “Nnnno, shtopp,” Staci said, batting our haz-matted hands away like a kitten. Like a fucking wasted kitten. Covered in puke.
“We have to get her out of here,” Kris said, and I couldn’t agree more.
At that point Lupe, one of our busser/custodians, knocked on the door.

“JUST A MINUTE” we sing out in tandem.
“Shhh I’m fffhiiiine you,” says Staci quietly.
I squeeze out the smallest opening our door can squeak open and explain to Lupe that Staci has food poisoning, and that NO ONE should go in there. Eyes wide, Lupe nods in understanding.
“You want I clean?” she asks innocently, having no idea what the extent of the damage is.
“Ahhhh, no, no, we’ll take care of it — thanks Lupe!”
Kris and I swap out, and I try to get Schwaisted Kitty to sip some water while Kris scavenges for clean clothes. Staci hiccups, then barfs up the water, which actually helps us clean her a little better.
Kris returns with a t-shirt from her personal stash and a pair of scissors. We’ve rodeo-toweled the vomit lake into a tighter ring around the base of the toilet, so we can actually step in a little closer and get Staci’s shirt off. It’s not as hot as I’m making it sound. We slip the clean shirt on over her head and do our best to mop off the rest of her so she looks as normal as possible.

Staci’s lurching in and out of consciousness, but she’s stayed awake so far. We know we have to get her home, but there’s no way we’re putting her in an Uber because she’d wind up raped and dead then raped again for sure. It’s Uber’s policy.
I find Staci’s bag and fish around the cavernous sack until I find a small pouch with her credit cards and Driver’s License in it. “Hey, do you still live at 123 blah-blah street,” we ask.
“Shuuuurrrre,” she answers. Ugh. So, maybe? It’s a gamble.
We leave our baby servers in the capable hands of Kelsey while we figure out a plan. And before you go “hey, you two enablers are enabling AF,” let me assure you that Staci is a really good kid, and this is the first and ONLY time she’s ever done anything like this. She’d had a shit thing happen to her that day, and apparently she wanted to daydrink to take the edge off. She and Kelsey had met up for a few drinks, but Staci wound up having way too many. Like, seven or eight too many, according to Kelsey, who was probably lowballing that answer anyway. If someone does this habitually, they might deserve to lose a job. But sooner or later, we all wind up being a Princess at some point and everyone gets one freebie. This was a good, kind human being who needed help.
And so she has FOOD POISONING. Ask anyone! Ask Lupe!
Since the aforementioned “food poisoning” has rendered her incapacitated, Kris and I each put an arm under her armpit and carry her, Weekend-At-Bernie’s-Style, to Kris’ car in the parking lot.

Kris unfolded a silver sunshield and laid it down flat in the backseat of her car, and we one! two! three! tossed Staci on top of it. She lay corpselike as we stuffed her feet in and turned her head to the side so she wouldn’t asphyxiate if she vomited again. The sunshield folded over her a little as she lay there and I observed that she looked a little like Chipotle.

We’d found her keys in that giant-ass bag of hers, and while Kris waited with Burrito-Bernie, I walked allllll the way around the parking lot pressing the “alarm” button until a car responded. And not just any car — this fucking car:

I climb up into the cockpit, the belly of this wonderous whale, and the supple leather seat hugs the curves of my body. A knot that has lived in my back for 4 years instantly releases. I grip the steering wheel with one hand and press the ignition button (!!) with the other, and the beast roars to life. It gets, like, 15 miles to the gallon and I probably used a small dinosaur’s worth just revving the engine, but my subsequent cargasm was totally worth it. Fuck. MY car is 17 years old and my seats don’t hug my butt like this. My seats are made out of duct tape and wishes. What have I been doing with my life? But — oh, yeah — the mission!
I purr and prowl this behemoth out the parking structure and pull up alongside Kris. I roll the window down and stare until she realizes what I already know:
“HOLY FUCKBALLS THAT’S A NICE CAR,” she says or something tactful.
We consider putting Staci in her own backseat so she can throw up in the luxurious comfort of her own car, but she was comatose and therefore deadweight so we give up.
Kris and I pop her what we hope is still her address into our GPSs and see that we have a 26-min drive ahead of us. OK, cool — but this drive is taking us into a part of the state we’ve never been to before… Suddenly we’re out of the city and driving through the twilight through a dusky canyon, and winding up, up, up a mountain until the twinkling lights from the town below look like fallout from some epic sparkler. I smile in spite of myself and wondered if Elizabeth had felt the same rush of exhilaration taking me home to my very boring neighborhood. Probably not.
I have the window rolled down still, and I hear birdsongs I’ve never heard before. I’m smelling sweet nightgrasses and it truly feels like we’ve transcended to another planet. Hadn’t we just been at work?

The roads turn twistier and windier until we both miss a hairpin turn and reverse our way (almost off the cliff) in the darkness to what looks like the right address. We follow the 1/4 mile driveway further up the mountain until we reach the fucking palace at the pinnacle.
You know, a palace. It’s where Princesses live.
God damn Staci. Tell me again why you’re working with us for minimum wage?
We park outside the 5-car garage, just to the east of the horse paddocks.
Kris gets out of her car and we’re both exchanging “WTF” glances as we make our way to Staci’s door. I take a deep breath and poise my hand for knocking when the door bursts open inward and a tiny Latina lady in a mumu zips out with a serious hairy eyeball for each of us.
“Hi, we’re friends of Staci,” I say. “She’s OK, but -”
“Where is she?!?” Mama demands, flying over to Staci’s car and yanking on the locked doors. I hand Mama the keys and direct her to Kris’ perfectly decent car that now looks like a pumpkin carriage way after midnight in this setting.
Mama jerks the door open and immediately slaps her daughter on the face.
Hard.
Kris and I exchange oh shit glances as we help Mama help Staci to her feet. Mama slaps Staci again, and Staci groans and grimaces.
“What did you take, Staci?” Mama is not pleased. She rounds on us, somehow still supporting the full weight of her half-awake grown daughter like a Carpenter Ant with a leaf. It’d have been impressive if we weren’t so terrified.
“Nothing!” we insist, trying to explain about the drinks, but Mama won’t have it.
“She quits! She quits your restaurant. She’s done!” Mama says.
“Mom, no,” Staci manages to slur out, but there’s no use.
Mama manhandles Staci inside and yells “get in the shower!” after her, then gruffly thanks us for getting Staci home before firmly shutting (and locking) the door. Then the yelling in Spanish begins, so Kris and I hightail it back to work.
We’ve each had a night like this, so we agreed to stick to the food poisoning story, in the interest of Saving the Princess. We make it back to work in time to help our new girls out with dropping the bills on their very first tables, and we both received a hearty hug from Kelsey.

Staci did indeed quit, per her mom’s insistence, but since management never found out, the door is open should she want to return. For all anyone at work knows, everything was on the up and up.
It seems like a lot of effort for someone I didn’t really know that well, but I always liked Staci and hadn’t Elizabeth the Showgirl done practically the exact same thing for me? If I hadn’t been shown I was worthy of love, I wouldn’t know how to show it. I will always be grateful to her. In coming to my rescue, she showed me I deserved to be saved.
The best part is, we Princesses keep paying this love forward. In these Sterling Moments of Sisterhood, that first seed is planted: we are Worthy. We are Enough. Eventually we learn to take care of ourselves but first someone has to show(girl) us the way. Thanks Elizabeth. Thank you Wolves. Thank you Kris and thank you Staci. You’re all someone’s heroes, but especially mine.
