It turns out I am going to be in the same room with Royalty today, but I don’t think Bubby knows that. Still, this breathless message arrived late yesterday:

Hey Mr. C.,

Everybody at Wilkie High is talking about the King and Queen of Norway being in town, and how cool is that? Some of us were daydreaming how we might grab a bus downtown and maybe run into them, be our super extra charming selves, and maybe get deputized into the royal posse and brought back to Norway as sort of their pet Americans.

Kinda far fetched, I know, but when Mr. Boozenporn lectured on Norway yesterday, it sounded so cool! It almost made me want to find it on a map, but then I decided it would be more fun to learn about that later. Maybe after I arrive. Did you know that they have jobs there? They do! Because they produce oil and stuff. So if me and my friends were Norwegian teenagers, we might actually be thinking about getting jobs when we’re done with school instead of just living in mom and dad’s basement, maybe.

Then last night I had this dream that I went to Norway and became a Scandanavian Oilwegian, and I sent thousands of dollars back home to my folks to help them pay for their health care.

Don’t get me wrong, I love America. But I love money too, and it sounds like in Norway they’ve got some that ordinary people are allowed to have. A lot of the people speak English too, and the countryside is like Minnesota, so I’d feel pretty comfortable right away. Even a lot of the stuff is the same as here. Somebody told me if I go to Norway, I had to ask somebody to show me all the Fords. Don’t know why that’s so important, but apparently they’re all over on the west side of the country!

Anyway, if you happen to see the King and Queen of Norway and they say they’re looking for some American Youth to take back with them, please spell my name right.

Your friend,

B-U-B-B-Y

I told Bubby it was not likely that the Norsk Royals would adopt him or take him home to work in the oil fields. They are not here on a mission to accumulate stray American youth. And if he thinks he might someday move far away to a place where there are jobs so he can send some money back to his poor old mum and dad, he should start in a place that’s more reachable and less exotic, like North Dakota.

What kind of Queen (or King) would you make?