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President Obama Had A Run-In With A Rodent At Buckingham Palace

And he had the perfect reaction to telling Michelle.
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama appear with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip on a state visit to the U.K. in 2011.
Larry Downing / Reuters
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama appear with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip on a state visit to the U.K. in 2011.

When President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama stayed at Buckingham Palace during a state visit in 2011, the couple had a glamorous experience, eating off of gold plates and admiring some of Queen Elizabeth’s “bling.”

Everything sounds as fancy as you’d expect. That is, until the president ran into a little rodent problem.

In an excerpt from a new book by Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, shared with People, Rhodes writes about the moment a butler walked into the president’s room and delivered some bad news. It happened just as Michelle was going to sleep in another room, the story says.

“Mr. President, pardon me. There’s a mouse,” the butler told Obama, according to Rhodes’ book, The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House.

“Don’t tell the first lady,” Obama answered.

The butler added, “We’ll try to catch it, sir.”

“Just don’t tell the first lady,” the president said once again.

No word on if Michelle ever found out about the mouse, as she never mentioned it in her past stories about her Buckingham Palace sleepover.

Probably what Obama's face looked like when he heard about the mouse.
Larry Downing / Reuters
Probably what Obama's face looked like when he heard about the mouse.

“The [royals] hosted us for the state dinner. When you’re the guest country you stay at Buckingham Palace,” the former first lady said on “The Late Show” in 2016. “I do remember ordering french fries at the palace, they were good. They were some good fries.”

Perhaps even more impressive was the tableware at the state dinner.

“When we were served at the state dinner ― you know how we [at the White House] have chargers and they’re gold, so you sit down, and everything is gold,” Michelle said at an event in February, according to People. “The plate that I thought was the charger, that was the plate. They put food on the gold charger because that was their plate. I said, ‘You win. You win on the plates. You got us beat.’ Their rose garden? Much bigger.”

But they still don’t have better food than the White House, according to the former first lady. Perhaps it’ll be better the next time the Obamas stop by London to meet with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s newest son, Prince Louis.

Break out the robes!

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.