I’m on Assignment!

Apparently I had quite a few lives in royalty, but that was a long time ago. The one that stuck out most to me was the one that was as recent as about two hundred years ago. It struck a nerve because even though I really don’t know much about world history, I know that monarchies have been disappearing for a while. . . wasn’t that what the French Revolution was about? Also, I am not at all even slightly royalty material. I hate dressing up and I do anything I can to avoid situations that require it. I would rather sit on the couch, watch TV, and maybe get a pizza. I guarantee you will find me in shorts, a t-shirt, and barefoot. I might even have some kind of food stains on me. It's the comfort I crave. I have also found myself eating leftovers directly out of the refrigerator, and maybe eating a sandwich over the sink because I am not motivated to get a plate. I know all this because I have witnessed myself doing this. What part of me is refined? Is it the way I pair my diet soda with corn chips and beef jerky? Is it the way I sometimes eat a tube of goat cheese straight out of the package like a candy bar? Maybe it’s the bra hanging off the door knob. This royalty thing was clearly not true, but I found it hilarious. Just for fun, I decided to see if I could find anything that matched the criteria I was given: I was a woman, married to Tom about two hundred years ago, and we did not have children. The part about me being locked in a tower was obviously trivia and would never find such a mundane fact anywhere. I told Tom about this, and to him this was the funniest thing ever. He really didn’t have anything to say either way about us being in royalty, he was cracking up because I was actually studying world history, which was on a list of things he thought he would never see. History was Tom’s favorite subject and I mega-loathed it. In order to get through my history requirement in college, I took a course at community college so it would just transfer to the University without affecting my GPA. Even then, I had Tom choose the course because he was going to help me with my homework. Nonetheless, I began the process of elimination before I started my Internet searches. I had this voice in my head that was saying, “FRANCE! LOOK AT FRANCE!” I ignored those feelings immediately because I knew I was biased from my French-speaking abilities and the desire to want to visit someday. That wasn’t scientific, so I ignored all that. For about three weeks, on and off, I casually looked at searches worldwide for monarchies about two hundred years ago. I widened the search to three hundred years ago. I gathered about twenty names ranging from one to three hundred years ago that I could have been. I went through the names, one by one. Nothing really stood out to me while I researched their biographies. I felt nothing. I finally caved in and looked at France, arguing with myself the whole time. “It’s not France, you just want it to be France.” Still, I kept looking. The one that actually came slightly close to resembling me and Tom was the Comte et Comtesse de Provence, but what didn’t sit with me was the Comtesse being described as an alcoholic. Also, The Comte “hated” the Comtesse. Tom and I can have some heated fights, but “hate” is not an accurate term for us. The next search was to look at Marie Antoinette. I was really hoping I wasn’t a match for her, I didn’t want to be the mean lady that told everyone they could eat cake. Marie Antoinette had four children, and I let out a big sigh of relief that I was not her. I looked at her four children, two sons and two daughters. The younger daughter died as an infant, so I could not be her. The eldest lived to adulthood and did not have children, this could be a match, or at least a read until I could find something that showed that this could not possibly be me. Marie-Thérèse Charlotte was born December 19, 1778 (I was born December 15, 1977), and she was described as “strong-willed.” So far I am amused, and I keep reading. I see that during the French Revolution the royal family was imprisoned, and the prison looks like a tower. I started to feel very weird at that point. I reminded myself this was a two-for-one, the husband had to resemble Tom, or this was not her. The quickest way out of this unease was to look up her husband, Louis Antoine. Louis Antoine, le duc d'Angoulême was born August 6, 1775 (Tom was born August 20, 1969). He was described as “puny, shy, and timid.” My hand went over my mouth and my eyes got as big as dinner plates. I was shaking. I said to myself, “It’s just a really big coincidence.” Then I saw his portrait, and he is a dead-ringer for Tom. The words, “freak out” didn’t begin to describe what I was feeling. I felt horror, anger, shame, fascination. I kept saying, “Oh my God, oh my God!” I got up and started running around the house, this just couldn’t be true. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I felt like laughing, screaming, crying, every emotion there was. I felt like someone was playing a joke on me, except that it couldn’t be a joke because this information was all over the Internet. Pandora’s box was wide open.