Once upon a time, the daughter of a mermaid and a water park aficionado was catapulted into a wave pool to the lair of a half-man, half octopus. Upon meeting, the aforementioned creature welcomed her home, much to her horror.
“I’m Old Slipslide,” he introduced himself. “And I look forward to having you as my wife.”
“Old Slipslide? That sounds sort of dirty,” she said.
“Dirty? How so?” he asked.
“Nevermind,” she replied, “What’s all this wife business?”
And Old Slipslide explained, slowly and patiently, that by darting into his underwater home, the girl had consented to be his wife. And he was very glad she had, for she had the cutest little nose he ever did see. He assured her that there was no escape, and then shuffled off to prepare dinner.
At first, she scoffed at his promise, and made for the door, the window, and the interesting catapult device he used every day to go out and get the paper. But sure enough, everything was locked with a combination she had to admit, after many tries, she just could not figure out. And eventually, she got sort of comfortable living at the bottom of a wave pool. Old Slipslide turned out to be a pretty good cook, and his idea of marriage was apparently watching movies together while eating dinner.
But from time to time, she saw faces she recognized in the newspaper — her old sweetheart’s, or her father’s, and she realized she very much missed her old life. But how was she going to escape?
After ruling out any real escape plans, she tried something simple. She made comments, left notes, sang songs, all around the same general theme: I miss my dad, and this house is so stuffy, maybe we could open a window every once in a while? Finally, Old Slipslide obliged by opening a window, and the girl darted out and swam to the surface before he realized what was happening.
Back home, she was received warmly indeed by her father and her former sweetheart, whom she immediately agreed to marry even though she supposed she was technically still married to Old Slipslide. But she didn’t worry about it, because she was so very happy to have her old life back.
For a little while, anyway.
After a few months, she found that she was a little annoyed by her new fiancee, she missed having her own space, and she even sort of missed Old Slipslide. Her sweetheart was not a good cook, as it turned out, and loved to have romantic evenings dancing in the moonlight, which was nice at first, but had gotten old really fast. However, she was happy to be with her father again, and she did not really miss living underwater or being held captive.
The solution presented itself to her all at once. During a particularly bad bout of dancing atop the water slide, she asked her sweetheart to pause while she scribbled off a note: “Come see me if you’re ever on the outside”.
She taped the note to his jacket and immediately shoved him down the slide. He flew off in a spectacular manner and landed in the middle of the wave pool.
She smiled, and then she waited.
The End.
Source: Old Rinkrank, Brothers Grimm
