“Would you like the Bridal, then?”

I have a favorite naughty joke. It’s a favorite more for the subversive niceness than for the naughtiness, though.

A fresh-faced young man approaches the front desk at a nice hotel one late-May afternoon and asks for a room.

“You certainly seem happy,” the clerk laconically notes while expertly working the hotel’s computer system.

“I’ve got a lot of reasons to be,” the young man replies.

“What’s that?,” the clerk absent-mindedly asks.

“Well, for one thing, this is my 21st birthday. For another, I just got my Ag degree from Purdue in just three years. And best of all, I just got married!”

The clerk pauses her computer work and perks up. “Would you like the Bridal, then?”

“No,” the young man replies. “I’ll just hold onto her ears till I get the hang of it.”

Note the subversive niceness? The joke assumes that this young man is — Ahem! — inexperienced.

How quaint! How unrealistic!

How incongruous with the coverage of last week’s royal nuptials, where whichever Prince it was most definitely will not be needing a bridle.

And how devastating it is when young people who aren’t princes, entertainment celebrities, or graduates of elite universities emulate this.