Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.7.0.10 $; site trsvax Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!convex!trsvax!gm From: gm@trsvax Newsgroups: net.jokes Subject: Dave Barry: The Royal Visit Message-ID: <53100148@trsvax> Date: Mon, 18-Nov-85 23:55:00 EST Article-I.D.: trsvax.53100148 Posted: Mon Nov 18 23:55:00 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 23-Nov-85 00:56:13 EST Lines: 63 Nf-ID: #N:trsvax:53100148:000:3577 Nf-From: trsvax!gm Nov 18 22:55:00 1985 The uneventful visit of Charles and Di By Dave Barry WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- We are here at the airport, waiting for Their Royal Highnesses, who are due to arrive at oh-twelve-hundred-thirty-five hours. We are using military time, to make it more exciting, in that nobody understands it. As John Keasler, a veteran observer who works for a competing newspaper, put it, "I was in the military for seven years, and I never knew what the hell time it was." We have been here in the sun for maybe two hours. Some of us have been trying to think of a good question to ask Princess Di, if she gets close enough. We agree that we will ask her if she is pregnant, but we cannot decide how to word the question. We have rejected, as too blunt, "Your Royal Highness, do you have a bun in the oven, or what?" The first plane to land, at about oh-eleven-thirty-hundred hours, emits Armand Hammer who walks over to greet us. We ask him a lot of hard-hitting questions like, "How are you?" and, "How do you feel?" He says he feels fine. I ask, "Can I have some money?" He doesn't respond, which in no way accounts for the fact that I am going to mention here that despite his great wealth he was wearing a sports jacket that a person with any fashion sense would not feed to a goat. Finally, at oh-twelve-hundred-thirty-five hours, up rolls The Royal Jet. I would like to say the crowd at this point erupts into a frenzy, but it doesn't. It acts more like it is seeing some oddity of nature, like a porpoise riding a unicycle. Their Actual Highnesses descend the airplane steps and walk toward us, greeting those members of the public who have been permitted past the barbed wire on the basis of wearing Topsider boating shoes. Di is wearing what I would describe as "a dress." She looks far better than Armand Hammer. Finally, they get close to the press, and we totally wimp out on the pregnancy issue. Instead, we yell to Charles, practically in unison, the following incisive question: "HOW WAS YOUR TRIP?" And Charles, showing that effortless good-humored wit about which we have all read so very, very much lately, replies, "VERY NICE!" We all write this down as if it were the number of Hammer's Swiss bank account. --- Now I am in one of the press buses headed for the polo match. In front of me are two newspaperwomen. They're talking Di talk: FIRST WOMAN: That's all the woman wears! Black and white! SECOND WOMAN: In Washington, she wore red. FIRST WOMAN: Well, red, but no primary colors. SECOND WOMAN (looking out window): You know, Florida is one great big 7-Eleven. --- Now we are at the polo match, where Prince Charles' team is playing the Harlem Globetrotter Polo Team, which performs wacky comical stunts with trick balls. That's not true, of course. The truth is much funnier. For example, the chaplain who says the opening prayer asks God to keep the players in their saddles. Next they have a series of "chukkers" in which Charles and various other foreigners gallop around in front of people wearing ugly clothing and saying, "Well done!" --- So that about sums up the afternoon, as I recall it. The evening was a very formal affair to which I had not been invited, which was just as well as it involved Mr. Merv Griffin, plus I had a previous engagement with veteran observer Mr. John Keasler to see if there were any places around here where they sold beer, which, as it turned out, there were. (Copyright 1985 Knight-Ridder Newspapers)