I met a princess last week. A real life princess who, the moment she met me, immediately disliked me.
I guess I’m not meant to run with princesses.
We were at an embassy event, and I sat next to her with a bottle of beer in my hand, from which I was drinking. The bottle, not the hand. I was drinking from the bottle.
“Oh!” she said, and turned her back on me. “I was brought up never to drink from the bottle!”
“What difference does it make what I drink from?” I said.
“Let me tell you this,” she said. I should at this point mention that she was an elderly princess, in a suit of bright red, even her hat. She was a princess of Montenegro, I believe, although she was born in Sweden and spoke with a British accent. “Let me tell you this. You won’t get invited to the right sorts of parties if you drink from the bottle.”
“I don’t think I want to go to the right sorts of parties,” I said, drinking from my bottle.
The princess laughed, and laughed. “Do you hear that!” she said. “She doesn’t want to go to the right sorts of parties!” She laughed a lot at that, actually. I suppose it was rather funny to a Montenegrin princess living in Croatia. “Girly,” she said. “You don’t know what you are missing out on.”
She’s right, of course. I have no idea what I’m missing out on. And as I continued to drink beer from the bottle for the remainder of the evening, I was at least certain of one thing.
I am no princess.
