I GOTS ME SOME ENTUSIASM #9

So, I gots me some enthusiasm.

And in 1995, I got to meet the King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway.

Sybase, the computer software company which shared its laboratory space with the biotech firm I was then working for, had leased nine Norwegian-made electric vehicles for their programmers to use around town.The idea, back then, thirteen years before the North Pole melted away, was to lessen carbon monoxide pollution by eliminating cold starts of hundreds of vehicles in the mad dash to get errands done during the problematic lunch hour.

As I was walking over to the Emery Bay Public Market to play some mind-clearing pinball at lunch time, I wandered in to the media event surrounding Sybase's use of these vehicles. There were several limos, large black Town Cars, mobile satellite news vans, and the compulsory jack-booted California Highway Patrol. Jauntily approaching one of these mirror-shaded representatives of the local constabulary, I quite innocently inquired as to the nature of all the brouhaha.

"The King and Queen of Norway are here," replied the cop, not so nearly as clipped-sounding as you might think. He was sort of bored.

Just then, The King and Queen burst out of one of the buildings in a frenetic dance of "I'm late for something, and I've very busy, you see," surrounded by huge, hairy, humorless men all dressed like Ellwood Blues.

The King looked straight at me, presumably because I was the only one in a five mile radius wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and thereby looking mighty out of place.

"Hi, Mr. and Mrs. King and Queen!" I yelled.

After one of them there "pregnant pauses" you hear so much about nowadays, wherein I started to become convinced one of those Norse Secret Service-equivalent guys or one of the CHP or possibly even an over-enthusiastic news reporteer was going to wrestle me to the ground... said King and Queen broadly smiled and both gave me big waves and got into their fossil fuel-burning limo and sped away into the fog-enshrouded late afternoon.

I, for my part, scored very well on the "Theatre of Magic" pinball game I played immediately afterwards.

What does all this have to do with anything?

Nothing.

But me, I gots me some enthusiasm for storytelling, and that's one of mine.

Come see me at booth #2001 if you're down at San Diego this year, and I'll tell you another one.