Rue Thadday - hobo princess

When you're of a youngish persuiasion, you can expect to be asked certain questions.

"What's your name?"

That one's easy.

"Ruby Golly Thadday," and here should would do a little curtsy, like her grandmam taught her to. "But everyone calls me Rue."

"And how old are you, Rue?"

Another easy one. She would just check the date in her notebook scribble out some appropriate math equations, and one tongue chew later, she would have the answer.

"Seven years, and a little bit over."

"And what do you want to be when you grow up, Rue?"

Now, this was where things got a mite sticky.

It was custom for folks around her age to say "a pirate," but she had been a pirate, and had found it to be unsatisfactory. There was altogether too much sea for altogether too little loot—not to mention all those new swears to remember.

She might say "a cowgirl," but she had been one of those as well, and decided that cows were just not all they were made out to be, and not worth focusing your entire existance around.

She might even say "an astronaut," but really, she did not understand all the hub-bub there, as freeze-dried pizza just did not compare to the real thing at all, not even when you ate it on the moon

The thing about Rue was she hated the question "what would you like to be," because it implied that you weren't being anything at the moment, as if being was something you did in a distant future. Rue saw no reason to wait around to try her hand at being, and so she took up this vocation, or maybe that one, until, at last, she hit upon something that suited her just fine indeed.

Hoboing.

The fact of the matter was that hoboing summed up all of her favorite things in the world. She got to spit, and wander around, and sleep in boxes, and eat beans straight from the can with a dirty spoon. It was just the most spectacular thing she had ever experienced, and so, at the tender lil' age of eight, she settled in to what she now saw as her life's work.

Her father would try to turn her away from her chosen way of being by saying, "Rue, baby, hoboin' isn't so much a trade as it is a way of life. You gotta find yourself a profession, darlin', and earn yourself a daily wage, so that you might hobo in the manner to which you have found yourself accustomed."

Rue had to admit that the man had a point, and so she sat in her box, turning the problem over and over in her mind. Day in and day out she thought, as the rain and sun and moon and breeze came and went and came and went.

Then, in a flash, the answer presented itself, tied up right without a problem at all.

Nobody never questions a princess as to what she is doing. No princess ever has to get a job, and get up early every morning with her lunch in a paper sack and get on the bus and go across town just to get bossed around. Nobody bossed around a princess, except maybe the king, but really, that would only be a problem if she ran into one, which she was not planning on doing any time soon.

And so it was that she set about the very serious task of being Rue Thadday, hobo princess.