Dear Kid,

Once upon a time life was easy.

That time was 6 years ago on a Tuesday morning from 8:57am to 8:58am.

Easy didn’t last very long.

Which isn’t to say that life is hard.

We have it pretty good compared to most of the world. We have enough to eat, we have a place to sleep, we have indoor plumbing, and we have NCIS.

But we have plenty of first world problems.

We have restaurants to choose from at lunch, we have multiple flavors of coffee to decide between, we have to learn new phrases like on fleek, we have more jewelry than we can wear at once, and we have The Royals (yes, it’s still awful, and yes, I keep watching).

Once you finish exams this week, you’ll be home. This is FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC for a whole variety of reasons. It also brings us one more first world problem.

Two cars, four drivers, 19 places to go.

Prepare to compromise.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Have you been watching The Royals? Probably not, because you’ve probably been studying non-stop. I’m sure it’s not because you’ve been watching basketball, even if we are mid-March Madness in April.

I have now watched three episodes, which should be enough to make me an expert.

My Opinion: Stick with the basketball. I mean studying.

The Royals is not a great show. It doesn’t even manage to be a good show, although I keep watching and waiting for the fairy godmother of writing to fling her wand in and fix things.

I even went so far as to read a few reviews about it to see if I’d missed something. The only thing I missed was a great line written by Vicki Hyman of NJ Advance Media for NJ.com. Talking about the clothing on the show she wrote, “…outrageous fashions (there is hardly a frock that isn’t gynecological in nature)…”

I keep expecting The Royals to somehow turn into something fab. But it doesn’t. Unfortunately, I appear to be captivated, and turn from reruns of House and CSI to The Royals on Sunday evenings like the loyal subject I am.

Unless you are obsessed with outrageous hats at physics-defying angles, stick with schoolwork. I’ll stick with The Royals for a few more episodes and let you know if anything changes enough to disrupt your studying schedule.

Don’t bet on it.

Love, Mom