Dreaming of Dead Royalty

I must preface this story with the cold, hard truth. I’ve never smoked, swallowed, or injected any type of drug.

After all, their variety confuses me.

However, my brain still seems to concoct the craziest dreams without any external assistance. And naturally I always believe that they’re my real life until I’ve woken up with my sheets all tangled and a cramp in my left calf.

None of that new-fangled lucid dreaming for me! That’s only for the cool kids!

It all started when my friend Amanda and I were touring Europe and decided to drop in on the Queen of England. She invited us in for a nice, strong cuppa, and we simply couldn’t refuse. Obviously. Lovely lady, the Queen. Just lovely.

When we left the palace, our private, bright yellow school bus was ready to pick us up right outside the gates. Chatting about how exciting it was to have finally become besties with the queen, we happily boarded our bus.

This was when we noticed that the late Princess Diana was our bus driver.

Obvies we’re VIPs.

Driving through London’s streets (which had quickly turned to bumpy country roads five blocks away from the palace), we didn’t think anything was amiss. Princess Diana was maneuvering a bit fast for my taste along the winding roads, but I just chalked it up to her being a stellar racecar driver.

I only realized that something was off when rainbow goop started spraying from the front of the bus, splashing the seats and windows.

Hands still tightly gripping the steering wheel, Princess Diana stood abruptly.

“Girls!” she yelled. “Close the blinds!”

Amanda and I glanced at each other.

“NOW!” she shrieked.

Now, everybody knows you can’t just disobey royalty. So while Princess Diana continued to drive recklessly, Amanda and I tore through the bus, running down the aisle and hopping over seats in order to pull down the window shades, all while being doused in slimy rainbows that were still shooting from the front of the bus.

Once we managed to sufficiently darken the bus, the rainbows had ceased fire. Princess Diana pulled the bus over to the side of the road and beckoned us towards her.

Gasp! The source of the rainbows! It was a folded up crossword puzzle! Of course! Wait… what?

Oh, Christ.

Princess Diana folded her son back up into his crossword and looked deep, deeeeeeep into my eyes. “The Queen is after us. She wants to murder my son and I, and she’s sent her police to get the job done for her. If anything, anything, happens to me… I’m entrusting Adam to you to keep him safe.”

And again, since you can’t just refuse royalty when they ask you to protect their hunted, illegitimate children, Amanda and I promised to help if the need arose. We settled back down and calmly wiped the rainbow infant vomit off our hair and faces. Princess Diana began to drive again.

Despite this news about the scandals of the British royal family, things were still going well. I was ignoring the sound of the sirens closing in behind us. I was getting excited for our next tourist attraction, whatever that might be, and frankly, I was rather enjoying the views of the beautifully green English countryside until Princess Diana thought it would be a brilliant idea to ruin everything and crash the bus into the siderail.

To make a long story short, she died.

Yeah. Not expecting that.

So let’s take a moment and analyze our situation: Our bus had been stopped by the metal siderail. Princess Diana was dead in the driver’s seat, smoke was billowing out of the hood of the bus, and Adam’s folded crossword was flat on the floor, beginning to burp up rainbow bubbles. And you can’t forget the fact that Scotland Yard was on our tail.

Amanda and I knew what we had to do.

We sprinted towards the front of the bus, and I snatched up Adam as we bolted out the door.

The policemen didn’t miss a beat, and followed us off the road into an English meadow. Swinging their bats over their heads, they yelled out for us to stop, but we pressed onwards, set on protecting baby Adam.

The Benny Hill theme song started to play as we were reaching the edge of a line of trees.

AND… I woke up.

Yeah, that happened. In my mind.

(And for those of you who aren’t humming the Benny Hill song in your head right now, you should feel ashamed as you click on this. Now listen to it until it’s stuck in your head. You’re welcome.)