PJ Vogt

Oh, we left you.

And like, haha, like, oh, look at this tea.

We threw it in the harbor.

And I'm like, I don't care.

Like, I honestly don't care.

I was like, if I hadn't opened my mouth, you would have thought I was just an Indian guy.

So now that you found out I'm British, suddenly you're going to talk to me about throwing tea in a harbour, mate.

I honestly don't care.

So I think that's probably where that comes from, especially around the royals, because I think the British are very protective.

Even if you don't like them, a lot of British people are very protective about conversations of the royals should only occur between British people.

So this was the answer.

Why had the pool been kept a secret from me?

perhaps because I was a loud American, and the legions of British people who we'd emailed likely held in their hearts a prejudice about my ilk.

They thought that we only asked questions about the royals because we thought their royals were kind of dumb.

Our national identity, after all, began with the idea that monarchy was stupid, that a taxpayer-funded palace might represent a civilization unevolved.

We might ask questions, but the Brits suspected we did not seek to understand.

We were here to tease, maybe as a way of feeling better about the faults in our own system, with its nepotism, its corruption, its occasional January riot.

America had broken up with England two and a half centuries ago.

We had a country of our own.

Why were we still bothering them with our childish questions?