I can’t remember when I first discovered The Legend of Zelda TV series exactly, but it was definitely during either my late middle school or early high school years. I recall scavenging the internet to find all 13 episodes and watching them in bits and pieces, loving every second the cheesy series had to offer. I especially loved Link’s infamous catchphrase, which I would quote every opportunity I had.
Any chance I could I would utter those magic words, and it would usually result in a chuckle from whoever was on the receiving end of them. Either that or they’d reply with a “you’re excused,” which was equally funny. It could easily lighten the mood in any situation, but there was one time in particular that this was especially true.
I was on a mission trip with my church’s youth group. This wasn’t my first trip, but it was a year when I didn’t know as many people who were going. Most of my current church friends had decided to skip on this year’s trip, so the only person I really knew was my mom. I was always the outgoing weirdo of my friend groups, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t an overall extrovert. Luckily, the friend I would meet during this trip was all around outgoing, and because of that, I was able to open up to her about all my geeky loves.
While trimming the hedges of the establishment we were doing work for, we began to bond over television shows we both adored, like Avatar: The Last Airbender. She wasn’t as much as a gamer as I was, but I could still talk to her about my love of Zelda and all the other series I enjoyed. It wasn’t too long after that we starting doing everything together during that trip, geeking out and being goofballs.
One day after working on the hedges (we were put on hedge duty a lot because we were so dang good at it), the sky started to darken and it was clear it was about to rain. We began to make our way toward the cabins where we were staying, chattering the whole way there. I’m not sure what the conversation topic was this time, but I do remember being interrupted mid-sentence — not by my friend, but by thunder. Loud thunder.
I wasn’t frightened or upset by this, but I was a little miffed that the weather had decided to intrude on our conversation. I stopped in place, looked up, and shouted to the heavens: “WELL EXCUUUUUUUUUSE ME, PRINCESS!”
I don’t remember if I ever made mention of the show to my new friend, but she burst out laughing at the sass I was giving the sky. From that moment on, every time the thunder cracked we’d stop what we were doing, say the famous line, and continue on with our conversation. This not only continued for the rest of the day but the rest of the week. I know this never got old for us, but it probably got really tiresome for the other campers who had to endure our silly banter.
It has been a while since this friend and I last spoke, but I’ll always have this memory. Even now to this day, whenever I hear the thunder roar, I’ll always say, if even only in my head, “Hey, excuuuuse me, princess.”
