Kiss and Tell with the Prince of Hell

The shameless way I greeted the Devil.

Traditional greetings vary. Handshakes, kisses, two kisses — regardless of how it’s done, I’ve made it awkward at some point. Yet, all my previous social disasters pale in comparison to the level of humiliation I brought on myself the night I met the Prince of The Devils, Lucifer.

I’d never met royalty before. The closest I came was seeing Michael Jordan in a mall, but we were two ships passing in the night. And everybody was staring at one ship, but nobody noticed the other except for that ship’s mother, who was annoyed at the ship for wearing a wrinkled shirt to meet the ship’s aunt for lunch. So, when I met real royalty, the Prince of Darkness, I didn’t know the protocol.

I recently moved to Romania and have been attempting to make friends. My neighbors, Alex and Anca, invited me to a party across town. When we arrived, there were about twenty people inside, many who greeted me the traditional Romanian way, kisses on both cheeks. Usually, I mangle this greeting and kiss a stranger smack dab on the lips, but this time I avoided embarrassment. Still, I nervously shuffled away after each hello, uncertain of my ability to make small talk.

I kept to myself, sipping wine and nodding to strangers, and then thirty minutes after our arrival, excitement percolated through the party. I walked over to Anca and whispered, “What’s going on?”

She smiled and her eyebrows peaked skyward, “Lucifer is coming!”

“Lucifer who?” I asked.

“Lucifer full-stop, like Cher or Ronaldo.”

I laughed, “You mean Lucifer, The Prince of Darkness?”

Alex sniggered and placed his arm around me, “That’s not his name. He’s just Lucifer except when he’s drunk. Then he might refer to himself as The Great Red Dragon.”

I looked back and forth between the two of them.

“I don’t get it.”

“You’ll see,” Anca said with a smile.

Were they pranking me? I sipped my wine bemused, wondering what cultural nuance I’d missed. Within moments, an electric stir of activity came through the door.

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