"The King"

I am going through files today, pitching and organizing and reading old things.  Here is a little piece written in the spring of '89, about a certain young man who is currently touring Europe on his way home from China.  :-)

With his dad, about the time this was written.

He is the king, and he knows it.  Why else would he have the audacity to lie awake in my arms at 6:30 on a Sunday morning, cooing, laughing, and making bubbling noises with his bottle?  He probably even thought to himself, "Now, I know that if I weren't around, my chief lady-in-waiting would never be awake this early, so I'll prove that I'm the one authority who can move her out of bed."  And his gurgles, smiles, and happy sounds are the proofs of his power.

He knows that the right squeal or cry will bring one of his two principal subjects running to figure out his royal demand.  And he knows that when we venture out into public, the general populace will press upon him, exclaiming his every virtue, while he sits in his privileged throne (stroller by definition) and decides which one of the masses will be the recipient of the royal smile he might choose to bestow.

Some days I think maybe I should set this self-appointed ruler straight.  I should tell him, "Look, sir, we got along fine before you came along, and life was a whole lot simpler then.  In fact, a little over a year ago you weren't even a gleam in our eyes, and the world ran just great without your royal presence!"  But I never will.  One never makes such disrespectful remarks to a king.