Once upon a time there was a kind and prosperous king, whose only child was a daughter. The king had a queen who doesn’t figure into the story very much, except that she lived long enough never to saddle her daughter with a stepmother, and she only had the one child (this was before we understood the male contribution to fertility problems).

Anyway, by the time Princess Agatha was 20 and without a sibling, the king knew she was his only heir.

The princess was lovely, and she was as good as she was beautiful. She had no lack of suitors. But she failed to fall in love with any of them. She agreed with her father that she wasn’t getting any younger, that she’d want children, that she could use a partner when she had to step up and sit on the throne. She told the king she would accept the man he chose for her.

That was a puzzle for the good monarch. There was a country to govern and a woman to please. He devised a challenge.

He told the suitors that he would award the hand of his daughter and the inheritance of the kingdom to the guy who could accurately summarize Agatha. In her father’s opinion, there wasn’t a pigeonhole that could contain her; he challenged the callers to try.

The king ignored any who tried gross generalizations like female, or white. He disdained the superficial; suitors who suggested Capricorn or liberal or green were shown the door. He was a bit more tolerant with some who suggested agnostic, domestic, thrifty, honest. And he was impressed enough to meet twice with the three who tried combinations: Anglo-environmentalist; a 5 with Scorpio rising; Introverted/Intuitive/Thinking/Perceptive. But he couldn’t see marrying Agatha to any of them.

It was a year and a day after the search began when Amos arrived. He’d traveled a long way, motivated by the story he’d heard about the beautiful rich princess, but delayed by weather and circumstances. He spent so much time en route that he collected some wisdom. When Amos writes his memoirs he’ll tell the stories about the kind scorpion he encountered when he lost his way, the raging gazelle with the anger management problem he counseled, the thrill-seeking opossum’s stories and that one indolent but resourceful beaver. They were all sweet experiences and they taught Amos the ways of the world. So when he met with Agatha’s father he found it simple to speak.

“I look forward to getting to know your daughter,” he said to the king. “But I can tell even without meeting her that she can’t be labeled. Because no one can. No categories are accurate enough to be worth perpetuating. Pigeonholes serve no purpose for people, except maybe to manipulate them. And that’s not how I want to spend my time.”

I’ll bet you can guess what happened next. That king recognized a good son-in-law when he met one, and he took the necessary steps to unite Amos with Agatha.

What you can’t guess is what transpired after the wedding. Oh, the young couple lived happily ever after all right, but they didn’t keep the kingdom. They turned their efforts to the establishment of an orphanage and school (K through college) and eventually left the country to govern itself.