Confessions of a Princess

I can't stand the suspense!

The answer is: #1. I would never be mean to a foreign exchange student, silly people! I WAS a foreign exchange student. And the thought never would have crossed my mind to convince someone else to do something like that since I was never dumb enough to kiss a teacher to expect an A. (Except in Psych 101. But that was really more due to throes of passion, the A was just a nice bonus.)

So anyway, I am not mean like that, there was no foreign exchange student from Spain. (Or Italy, or anywhere else, V. But props for being the only person to guess #1.) There was, however, very good beer to be brewed in the bathtub at college. Seriously. It even got my dad's stamp of approval, which was quite an honor.

The same cannot be said, for the "wine" we made by distilling a stolen container of frozen grape juice concentrate from the cafeteria. That was finally disposed of only by prescribing it to Major Losers in drinking games.

My wedding will, indeed, involve a floating couch (more specifically, a lovely, large raft upon which a leather couch sits) and wolves, since the venue also happens to be a wolf habitat. I desperately want one to howl at some key point in the ceremony. ... Maybe I can hire a fire truck to go by at just the right instant. That always seems to set 'em off.

And I have been kissed by Paul Simon.

Tee hee!

(The fact that it was more of a nice-to-meet-you-peck-on-the-cheek backstage is a very secondary detail.)

And Switzerland loves me. Because I am a) cute b) princess-like c) stubborn. They tried to send me back to France, when I couldn't produce a passport but, oh-no. I have quite the control over my tear ducts and the waterworks went ON! and Swiss men, while very advanced in many ways, are still rather chivalrous and couldn't bear to see a maiden cry. Not the boarder control, customs agents, or police. Suckers.

So they let me come in. At midnight. On the last train. Then they discovered I intended to wander in the streets until I found a hotel, and oh-no,-not-at-this-hour-of-the-night-young-lady-do-you-know-what-kind-of-hooligans-are-out-there?(more stern looks: them / more lip trembling: me) and so nothing would do but that they would take me back to the police station. So I was given an escort back to the station, and felt that it was a good sign I was asked to sit in the front seat of the police car instead of the back, and was even allowed to play with the siren button.

At the station they let me call my parents in California, "Hi mom! Sorry to wake you up! I'm in the police station in Switzerland! Have a good night!" (She loved that.)

And then I was told I could take a nap on a cot. Except in the cot room there were a group of officers not really busy "working" so much as watching Pulp Fiction in English and sharing a large bottle of JD. So I was given a generous glass, and told to help translate what was going on, English not being one of the four national languages of Switzerland.

Then a cute officer-in-training gave me a ride up to the mountains the next day.

Ahhh.

And that is how it came to be that I never tricked a foreign exchange student. I had too much other shit going on.

Happy Friday!