LONDON, ENGLAND—They’ve had to wait almost 30 years for the event, but Great Britain is now gearing up for another royal wedding, this one for Prince William of Wales, the 28-year-old son of the last bride, Diana, Princess of Wales, who died in a 1995 automobile accident.
Kate Middleton, the bride to be who will be known as Her Royal Highness Catherine of Wales upon taking her nuptial vows on April 29th, 2011, will likely change her title to Queen of England one day; unless Prince Charles, William’s father, outlives his mother, the Queen of England, and his wife, Camilla Parker Boles, outlives—screw it…
But even though the engagement is less than two weeks old, questions, controversy, and conjecture are already swirling about what the marriage will mean to England, the Royal Family, and others worldwide who’ve never worked a day in their lives.
Chuckie Middleton, the bride-to-be’s father, who owns a small mail-order business selling children’s party supplies, unwittingly sparked the initial round of tabloid fodder when he announced he and his wife of thirty years, Gertrude, insist on helping to fund the wedding.
“I guess I was caught up in the moment,” said Chuckie in a rough, Cockney brogue. “Actually, I was caught up in about seven pints. And I had no idea how much this thing would cost. When Lady Di got hitched, I was doing a 10-year prison stint for mailing illegal Columbian plantains to the Soviet Union. I didn’t watch her wedding on TV, just a lot of bloody football and cooking shows.
“If the wedding the Queen wants is set in stone, I’ll have to sell about 32 million party hats and enough balloons to float the entire planet. I might have to look up my plantain broker. But,” he continued brightly,” I’ve set up a website for collections. It’s called sendchuckieabouquet.com. Anything you can do will help. At this point, I’ll accept grass clippings; whatever’s green and can fill up a vase.”
Chuckie’s daughter, however, was responsible for the second round of controversy once she scoffed at the notion of having children, insisting, “I worked hard for this body; I’m hot.” She threw open her arms. ”This is four hours a day on the treadmill, sweetheart. I’m not going to foul it with little castle rats. If she [the Queen] wants kids so bad, she can ask Camilla to have a go at it. I’m not sure how menopause works, but if it’s something money can fix, she married the right guy.”
According to Phyllis Ver der Linde, a file clerk at Westminster Abbey, where the wedding will take place, Prince William has been trying to explain to Kate that a big, big part of marrying a prince is having kids. “Apparently he was caught up in her hot-ness,” said Ver der Linde while shuffling through Prince Charles’ ATM receipts. “It never occurred to him she wouldn’t want to give birth to the future King of England—or that she didn’t know it was, well, required. It’s really the most important part of the job. If looks was all it took, the Royal Family would look a lot different than it does.”
A spokesperson for the Queen of England said she isn’t interested in publicly addressing her future daughter-in-law’s refusal to start a family, but is having Kate’s birth control pills replaced with Sweet Tarts. And if that doesn’t work, most Brits agree the Queen will take matters into her own hands. According to Simon Purle, a Piccadilly Circus taxi driver, “The Royal Family isn’t above scattering about rumors, mind you. If Kate won’t have kids, she’s cooked. You’ll soon be hearing she’s really a man or a postal worker. An entire country will turn on her and make life so miserable she’ll have to sell cheap, brass trinkets on a home shopping channel.”
But not every Londoner is disappointed with Kate’s proclamation that she’s “not going to spoil my hot-ness on some monarch monkeys.” Chuckie, a recovering Catholic who hadn’t attended church in over twenty years, can now be found at 6 o’clock Mass each morning, rosary beads in one hand, a plantain sprinkled with holy water in the other.
“If there’s a God in Heaven, Kate will hold her ground,” said Chuckie, rubbing the rosary beads so hard and frantically that its paint sloughed off and fell to the kneeling bench like purple snow. “They’ll never settle on a princess who won’t have kids, right? That’s like going to a McDonald’s and finding out they’ve run out of hamburgers…or not. I’ll have to re-think that one; I’m just so stressed out about paying for those damn flowers that my ability to create metaphors is shot to hell.
“Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with somebody else,” mumbled Chuckie, head in hands, “maybe a doctor or a lawyer—scratch that—maybe a doctor or a dock worker, somebody whose Mom doesn’t insist on digging up every flower in England and scattering them all about Westminster Abbey?
“I sent an e-mail to the Queen this morning,” continued Chuckie. “I said if the kids could get married by a Justice of the Peace, I’ll pay for their honeymoon, even send them to someplace exotic like Central America. I’ve got this friend in Columbia…”—Citizen Dick Arneson reporting
