ONCE upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry an heiress; but she would have to be a real heiress. For nowadays, with inflation and all, being a prince wasn’t what it used to be. He traveled all over the world to find one, Saks 5th Avenue, the Hamptons and many other spots where heiresses tended to congregate, but nowhere could he get what he wanted. So he came home again and was sad, for he would have liked very much to marry a real heiress and have his own reality TV show. One evening a terrible storm came on and the rain poured down in torrents. Suddenly a knocking was heard at the city gate, and the old king went to open it.

It was an heiress standing out there in front of the gate with her camera crew in tow. What a sight the rain and the wind had made her look. The water ran down from her hair and clothes; it ran down into the toes of her Prada shoes and out again at the heels. And yet she said that she was a real heiress.

“Well, we’ll soon find that out,” thought the old queen. But she said nothing, went into the kitchen, prepared a meal fit for a royal feast but placed one single conventionally-grown pea among the organic, heirloom peas heaped upon her plate.

The meal was presented with lavish style and grace. The heiress totally ignored her gracious hosts. She talked on her cell phone, flipped her hair and admired herself longingly in any reflective surface. She was making a very good impression but the prince still wasn’t completely convinced that she was a real heiress.

All of a sudden a blood-curdling shriek broke the silence! “Ewww! You idiot! I cannot believe you had the nerve to serve me this conventionally grown slop!”

Nobody but a real heiress could be so abrasive and self-absorbed. So the prince was smitten and asked for her hand in marriage, for now he was sure that he had found a real heiress.

Moral: Given enough time, sooner or later people will get what they deserve.