ROYAL HARDSHIP

It's holiday season which means the Christmas themed romcoms are in full swing. While there is a certain charm to them, there is one type in particular that tells me my charitable dollars have been squandered all these years. Instead of helping the poor kids at St. Jude's, or Catholic Relief, or even the local Animal Shelter, the group most in need of a charitable hand are the royals.

You see it every year, on each of the romcom channels (GAC, Hallmark, Lifetime). Some poor chap had the misfortune to be born into a royal family. While I do not know all the member nations of the United Nations, I truly have never heard of the countries these poor young princes hail from. Places like Morovia, Toronia, Iconia. Need I say I'm waiting for the representative from Vomitoria? Anyway, the weight of expectations, the crushing burdens of spending your days filthy rich, and the accumulated toll of centuries of inbreeding prove too much (yes, I'm looking at you, Prince Andrew). So the logical thing to do is flee your country for a small town middle America that looks like Santa's workshop had an unfortunate instance of spontaneous combustion. By the way, all the royals in these stories speak excellent English, albeit with a British accent. Presumably they were all part of the British Empire at one point and have no national identity.

Cutting to the chase, boy meets girl (wholesome American, because you know all Morovian women are insufferably stuck up), have a number of miscommunications, but with two minutes before the curtain falls, they kiss, fall deeply in love, convince the royal family to accept the commoner (they better--she's a wholesome American girl, after all), and live happily ever after.

All of which we all see in our everyday lives. Except, how many of these unfortunates can there be? Or more to the point, are the script writers so challenged that the same plot line must be resurrected year in, year out? Perhaps it's not only the royals who suffer from inbreeding.