You know, one of those occasions where they have a hundred guests seated at a long table with each place setting being a dozen or so utensils? So I decide I just HAVE to have a souvenir, and drop a spoon – or a salt shaker, or any other handy little item with a royal monogram on it – into my purse? And one of those jillions of footmen standing around sees me do it?
I’m guessing they won’t let me stroll out with it (unless maybe I’ve become the President and are the current guest of honor at the dinner?) but will someone sidle up to me all mock ‘we realize there was an unfortunate shift in the gravity waves and it caused a spoon to fall into your purse’ or will some Beefeater type guard lower his halburk to block my way and shout ‘Gotcha ya, you thief! It’s off to the tower for you?’
Just wondering, it might affect my plans for the rest of my English vacation.
I have no doubt that it’s not that unusual for a few smaller items to go astray at Royal banquets. I guess that if you take liberties then someone might have a quiet word, but the odd teaspoon is not going to result in a diplomatic incident.
You remind me of 16-year old immature myself, who was touring Chiang Kai-Shek’s private residence (a museum now) on a field trip. I absentmindedly pulled a sheet of tissue paper out of Chiang’s bedroom tissue-paper-box, which was in front of me. The nearby student next to me exclaimed something to the effect of “WTF!” and told me to hurriedly stuff the tissue into my pocket before any museum guides or guards noticed.
Funnily enough, exactly the same thing happened to me when touring Zhou En-Lai’s private residence as a teenager. But I was not so lucky as you, a guard saw me stuffing something into my pocket. As I was leaving the room, he stopped me and demanded that I empty out my pockets. I claimed that I had brought the tissue with me, but he sternly rebuked me, saying:
“That’s a tissue of Lai’s.”
It simply doesn’t happen. I understand that to prevent these kinds of thefts all the guests are required to strip down to their underwear before entering the dining room.
