The full force of my mother’s lie sank in as I walked to see the King and Queen of Spain at Government House. She had always told me, “You can be anything you want in life?”
“Oh yeah,” I thought as I waited to see them. “What about royalty?”
She bamboozled me!
Your life is never quite the same after a brush with royals. (My “brush” was from so far away, and so obscured, that I might have been looking at a light post, and not the King at all.)
It was incredibly exciting, but also terribly depressing — a reminder of all the ways I will never be royal myself. You feeling the same wakeup call? Here are a few signs that your dreams of nobility are officially dead:
• The only time someone ever curtsies for you is when their knees go out on them. Ever had this happen? Someone coming up to shake your hand. Suddenly they just crumple up and head to the ground, performing a flailing summersault. “No, no. I’m of no consequence,” you say. “Please don’t bow. I’ve never even been knighted.”
• You don’t have a really cool name. My name, for instance, is about as plain as a bologna sandwich … without the bologna. Brian Lee Thompson! In fact, it’s so original and unique that my middle name is shared by both my father and my brother. But royals have cool names with lots of Roman numerals, along with places they’ve visited, general commentary and royal proclamations. Ever notice that? His Royal Highness King Eduardo Diego Garcia IV, former Prince of Johnsonville, Ruler of All Things That Are Pretty Cool, and Official Grantor of Caramels on Halloween. Why couldn’t I have been named like that?
• Nobody waits on you hand and foot. People in your house might step on your foot, but if you ever said, “Bring me my bath robe!” you would either be sleeping in the shed or told, “Sorry, Your Royal Doofus, but it’s at the dry cleaners with your tiara.”
• You rise to make a toast at dinner and people whisper, “Well, he’s obviously drunk again. I wonder if he’s going to call for another planetary expedition to Pluto.”
• You don’t hear, “Your Majesty,” but instead, “Your mama!”
• You’ve never been duck hunting. You’ve barely ever eaten duck. In fact, the last time you saw a duck, he seemed none-too-impressed with you.
• Your security detail is a four-legged beast who has been known to bolt when leaves blow across the street. “What kind of dog are you?!?” I yell as she runs. “Is this how you’re going to act when bandits come for me?”
• Bandits never come for you. You don’t have a chest of Royal Gold or a scepter or something really cool like a ruby brooch with the toenail of the Arch Duke of Rigatoni, the great 14th century conqueror of Italy.
• You write sad newspaper columns lamenting your status in life, and that you’re not royalty, and that your mama lied to you. Ho-hum!