Saved by the bar

...Continued from

The impersonator was preparing for his big day. Of course he had practiced for hours and hours before, but this would be the first time he would be performing live. All right, he had tried performing live once before, but it had been a complete and utter disaster. Or so he liked to believe. His belief's were of course his business alone, and he liked to keep them that away.

Point was, and this was what the impersonator always had to keep in mind, he was going to be performing. Before an adoring crowd. The press was rooting for him to win. The royal box would be occupied tonight, to see him, the impersonator, in his greatest triumph.
----
The King was complaining again. "Would you just shut up?" asked his wife, "Haven't you been king long enough to know that when these sorts of events happen a royal presence is expected?"

The king responded, "Why can't you just go yourself?"

"Because it would be quite improper for a lady to go unaccompanied to the theatre. Think of the scandal!"

"Why can't you go with some other guy then?"

"Because if I go with 'some other guy' (making quotation marks with her fingers) then people will think that he's cuckolding you, which would of course be highly embarrassing."

The king, who hated when the queen made quotation marks with her fingers, thought of a good idea. "Maybe I go alone?" he asked.

"Absolutely not!" said the queen, "Besides, people might think you were abandoning the eden that is living with me."

The king would have snorted, but he realized that it's improper to snort in front of ladies. Then he realized that this was absolute poppycock, but he still didn't snort, because he knew that if he did his wife would disapprove in the strongest measures.

The queen took a look at the king, wondering why he hadn't said anything, and proceeded to fill the void with, "Besides, I really do want to show that the royals support the arts, and what better way could there be than to attend a live performance at the state theatre?"
----
Later that night...

The king may have been dominated by his wife, but he did have some powers. When they had first arrived at the theatre he had called the chief chamberlain over and told him to arrange drinks in the royal box, but on his side, so that the queen, a noted teetotaler, wouldn't be able to see what he was imbibing.

Being her usual eagle-eyed self she had in fact noticed the king drinking, but he had suavely turned the situation around by offering her a drink too, and when he handed her a Shirley Temple she was mollified. Obviously the chief chamberlain had followed her instructions and made sure that there was no alcohol in the building.
----
Half an hour after the show had started, just before the impersonator was to make his grand entrance, the king slumped forward to the floor. The crowd gasped, and the king's attendants rushed forward to help. A man leaped onto the stage and screamed, "Thusly to all tyrants!", and hundreds of guards swarmed forward to waterboard him (at least, that was the plan. First they'd take him into custody, book him, make a few press conferences, etc). The king was carried to a waiting ambulance, and as the sirens roared off into the night the king was transported to the bar of the theatre, his wife following behind the empty ambulance in the royal automobile.

The king's doctor was in the bar too, and he said, "My congratulations, sire, on that most brilliant escape."

"Escape??!!" cried the king, "I was deathly ill! The shock to the system would have killed any lesser creature!"

The royal physician arrived at that moment, and pushing the king's doctor aside, he said, "Yes sire, that assassination attempt would surely have killed any lesser man."

The king gave him a look that would have killed (if looks could kill), and said, "Assassination attempt? Putting ginger ale in my sixth Manhattan was an assassination attempt?"

At this moment the king's own surgeon arrived, and rudely pushing away the king's doctor and the royal physician he said, "Such a shock would surely have killed any lesser man, though I do declare, ginger ale in moderation can help the average diet."

The king, thoroughly disgusted by his inept medical team, wondered where he had gone wrong in life.

To be continued...