Why I Won't Watch the Royal Wedding

I'll admit it. I'm not going to watch the royal wedding on April 29.

I was caught up three decades ago, like so many Americans, with the wedding of Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles. As I recall, I had the day off from work and stayed glued to the TV screen. Over and over, I heard Diana mess up the order of Charles' string of names.

Perhaps much of the fascination had to do with the idea of a 19-year-old girl who came across as a naïf--even though she was from a very old royal family--marrying a prince in his thirties. As she walked slowly down the aisle of St. Paul's on her father's arm, I, like zillions of others staring at the image, couldn't help but wonder why on earth she had chosen a veil that literally smushed her hair over her eyebrows. And though she was said to be 5'10", that dress dwarfed her. The sleeves looked as though they were filled with helium.

Even those of us who aren't royal watchers know that Kate Middleton isn't Princess Diana or even much like her. For one thing, she's 10 years older and doesn't bring a royal pedigree to the marriage. What on earth do so many people-especially those who aren't British-find so unabashedly riveting about this tall brunette?

So here's the real reason I won't be watching the wedding as soon as the signal reaches my TV. I'll be busy doing something else. My family operates an animal rescue. The inside critters awaken me between 3:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. for the obvious: breakfast.

While various media analysts drone on about the history of Westminster-site of the wedding and a former Benedictine abbey-I'll be padding around in a wrinkled tee shirt, shorts and a pair of flip flops, carrying 28 bowls of food and water to our "guests," both inside and outside the house. It takes about an hour if all of them remain well-mannered and don't try to steal each other's food.

If I'm tempted to turn on the TV later in the morning, I already know I won't have time. I'll be too busy doing the weekly laundry, cleaning up a couple of hairballs and trying to drip flea medicine onto the shoulder blades of several of our charges.

Contrary to what some might think, I'm not an Anglophobe. I'm actually a bona fide Anglophile. My interest in English history was once so great that I named my daughter after Elizabeth Tudor and her mother, Anne Boleyn (who would have been a rockin' monarch herself if she'd had the chance).

I'm sure that eventually-make a week or a month from now-I'll catch a glimpse of the royal wedding. If I ever get time to read the daily newspaper, I might even see photos sooner than that. Certainly I'll spy mugs, pins, posters and maybe even underwear commemorating this Really Big Event on eBay at some point. If I somehow miss all of that, there's the History channel.

Sorry that I can't get really excited about the royal wedding. It isn't on my To Do list. If live TV coverage were of news that the British monarchy was really going to skip a generation, however, I think those critters might have to wait a bit for breakfast.

Source:

Personal experience