In which I admit to an unreasonable affection for the Royal Family

I know it's not very cool to admit but here it is: I love the British Royal Family. I know an embarrassing amount about them and their lives. Every time I see OK! magazine has the Royal Family on there - and oh, if there is a wedding! The joy! - I buy it and devour it while eating Dairy Milk bars. If a documentary is on, I watch it. I have an opinion on Fergie, Autumn Phillips (a Canadian! In the Royal Family!), succession planning and I cannot for the life of me wait until William marries Kate.

It's a sickness.

But I have my excuse. See, I grew up in Canada in the 80s. The HEIGHT OF THE PRINCESS DIANA YEARS. We grew up on frothy wedding dresses, doe-eyed beauties and fairy tales. We grew up alongside William and Harry and every morning, after we sang O Canada, we sang God Save the Queen. (Of course, I secretly added "and Princess Diana" to that song.)

Even as the reality of the fairy tale came to light, by now I was a grown up, and able to handle the despair.

And oh, I had a hate on for Prince Charles.

When I was 18, Princess Diana was killed. I remember it like it was yesterday. My Labradorian roommate, Lisa, and I had only known each other for a week or two. We were living in the dorms. We had no TV. And the news broke that Princess Diana had been in an accident, we nearly had a heart attack from lack of news. This was before the Internet, you see. And we were living in Tulsa, Oklahoma so none of the Americans really cared the way that we cared. Their hearts weren't breaking, like ours were, so even when we sought out friends with TVs and begged to watch the news, the coverage was minimal. But at least it was something.

I called my parents, long distance, and begged for $100 to buy a TV. They said yes and so Lisa and I ran to the WalMart in Tulsa (literally, because we had no car) and we bought a 13" TV with a VCR built in, ran back and set up the TV. Still no coverage.

So my mother videotaped about 8 hours of coverage, including the funeral, and priority mailed it to us in Tulsa. We sat on our beds and howled while we watched it, three days later.


I still have that tape (and a VCR, one of the last people in the world with one, I'm sure. It goes nicely with our 27" 10-tonne television.) and I saved every People magazine with her picture on the cover.

Like I said, it's a sickness.

And when William and Kate get married, I will likely sit in front of the TV for 6 days straight and will be able to tell you more about their bridesmaids dresses than I could tell you about my own while eating my body weight in Cadbury's chocolate.