She is an unlikely fairy princess with her pronounced underbite and her arthritic, bowed legs. Dainty she isn’t. She can snore like a whole chorus of chain saws and has a gas issue that is …. well … astonishing. Still, there are elements of Bert’s story that are the stuff of fairy tales: a dark prison, a wicked stepmother, two pampered and spoiled stepsisters gussied up in Malty-poo costumes and finally—and best of all!—a handsome Prince Charming.
Jim might seem an unlikely Prince Charming—a tall, martial artist with a mellow-bass voice. “I’m not always a terribly nice person,” he says with a laugh. (Although that is not true.) Jim is kind. And his heart was touched by the geriatric English bulldog imprisoned in his sister’s Connecticut cellar.
Bert, originally the pet of Jim’s brother-in-law, had apparently been living in the cellar for some time. First one and then the second Malty-poo entered the household and became the darlings of the residence. The wicked stepmother claimed that Bert did not get on well with the spoiled stepsisters; perhaps that was her justification for keeping the old bulldog imprisoned. And perhaps it is unfair to cast Jim’s sister in the role of wicked stepmother (but we have to make this fairy tale work.) Still, it took all of the Prince’s charm and patience to wheedle Bert out of the dungeon by convincing the stepmother to turn her over to him. (more…)
