moment to myself, and I wanted to, you know, send an email to one of myfriends, or perhaps even my BOYFRIEND. Well, not so simple, becauseguess what, castles built in the 1600s simply aren't wired for theWorld Wide Web. And yeah, the Palais de Genovia audio-visual squad istrying, but you still have, like, three feet of sandstone, or whateverthe palace is made out of, to bore through before you can even startinstalling any cable. It is like trying to wire the Alamo.

Oh, yeah, and the toilets? Let mejust tell you that back in the 1600s, they didn't know so much aboutsewerage. So now, four hundred years later, if you put one square toomuch toilet paper in the bowl and try to flush, you create a miniindoor tsunami.

Plus, the only person living herein the castle who is remotely close to my age is my cousin, PrinceRene, who spends

inordinate amounts of time gazing at his own reflection in the back ofhis ceremonial sword. And technically he isn't even

really my cousin anyway. Some ancestor of his was awarded aprincipality by the king of Italy way back in like 600AD,

same as great-great-and-so-on Grandma Rosagunde. Except that Rene'sprincipality no longer exists, as it was absorbed

into Italy three hundred years ago.

Rene doesn't seem to mind,though, because everyone still calls him His Highness Prince Rene, andhe is extended every privilege of a member of the royal household —even though his palace now belongs to a famous shoe designer, who hasturned it into a resort for wealthy Americans to come for the weekendand make their own pasta and drink two-hundred-year-old balsamicvinegar.

Still, just because Rene is fouryears older than me, and a freshman at some French business school,doesn't mean he has the right to patronize me. I mean, I believegambling is morally wrong, and the fact that Prince Rene spends so many