La Coquette

In retrospect, I so wish my comment had involved the words "des connards."

Sunday afternoon, I indulged in the Death By 1,000 Calories of Molten Chocolate Experience that is chocolat chaud in France.   First of all, I love that it’s served in a porcelain pitcher.  I love that after refilling one’s empty teacup several times, there are dark chocolate streaks clinging to the side of the pristine, white porcelain, like wax drippings on a candle.   The chocolate is so thick that, as it begins cooling, it forms a pudding-like skin on top, and I love that, too.  Tilting the teacup to your lips, the pudding-skin slips away like quicksilver, leaving one no choice but to finally conquer it with a swoop of a spoon at the end.   And the taste?  Lest this delve into overtly graphic realms, (TOO LATE, I KNOW), let me just say that I challenge anyone not to moan at least once.

This particular cocoa nirvana took place at a café on Boulevard Montparnasse, with an American girl à peu près de mon age, whom we’ll call E.  After a few hours of sinning together in the form of how many Weight Watchers points I DON’T EVEN WANT TO KNOW, we decided to walk back to my neighborhood for obvious cardiovascular reasons.    This amounts to a 30 minute balade from the hustle of Montparnasse area, along the quieter Boulevard Raspail, through the chic Saint Germain des Prés and into the tourist-laden err, colorful Latin Quarter I call home.  The typically gray Parisian-winter sky even approached sunniness at several points there.  I’m telling you, it was a veritable Maxwell Coffee commercial of an afternoon.

At about the corner of Boulevard Raspail and Rue de Rennes, enter a group of four French men spewing generic come-ons in our direction, INTERRUPTING OUR COFFEE COMMERCIAL IN PARIS MOMENT.  E had mentioned to me earlier that, in situations such as this, she always deflects with, “Je suis Findlandaise.”  It cracked me up that she pretends to speak an esoteric language, not because it’s implausible (she’s tall with platinum blonde hair--you would totally buy that she's Finnish), but because it says something about French men that SHE HAS OUTLINED SUCH A POLICY IN THE FIRST PLACE. 

It wasn’t long before our deliberate silence led one man to say, “Quoi, vous ne parlez pas Francais?”  (What, you don’t speak French?)  Maybe it was the snicker on his face or the 1,000 grams of sugar coursing through my veins, but this really riled me up because:  Dude, I didn’t spend precious years memorizing assigned genders for inanimate objects, and I definitely didn’t learn how to conjugate the stupid SUBJUNCTIVE so you could interrupt my Sunday in Paris Coffee Commercial Moment and TELL ME I DON’T KNOW HOW TO SPEAK FRENCH.

“Si, on parle francais,” I blurted in one breath.  After a satisfying pause, I continued to say, “Mais on n’a pas envie de parler avec vous.”  (Yes, we speak French, we just don’t have any desire to speak with you).

Watching them scuttle away from behind, E looked at me and said, “Or, that works too.”

How To Annoy Me

Give me THAT LOOK when I ask politely, and in perfect French, when you’ll be done with the elliptical training machine. YOU KNOW 30 MINUTES IS THE LIMIT, LADY.

P.S. The snotty tissue you left in the drink holder? Not nice.

This ain't no tailgate.

It took about two seconds to figure out you were American. Shorts and Birkenstocks in late October? Polarfleece in Paris? Who DOES these things? Frat boys, that’s who. Frat boys wearing T-shirts with holes in them that say things like “Ithaca.”

The clothes I could have overlooked, but you were there holding an open wine bottle by your side and walking with THAT WALK. The cock strut. You weren’t particularly well-built, but your arms were held to the side just so, like you were.

Then you walked up to a bunch of girls on a blanket--your friends I presume--and I swear one of them said, no shouted, “There are no bunnies at this park! Molly said she saw bunnies!” (Way to make Americans sound brilliant.)

Look, how ‘bout I serve you up a nice tall glass of shut the hell up? Will that make you feel better?

YOU STUDY ABROAD TO GET PUT OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE FOR TWO FRIGGIN SECONDS! This is not a Friday afternoon on “the quad.” People are trying to be chic and stroll and take their kids on ponyrides and you all had to show up and be all LOUD and ALCOHOLIC on a Friday afternoon in Les Jardins du Luxembourg.

And maybe, you know, out of the kindness of our hearts we could have pardoned this one offense, but you’re going to be here two more whole months, and, if I know your type (and oh, I think I do), I just know you’re going to embarass me again.

Dear Monsieur Fed Ex, You Suck

Cher Monsieur Fed-Ex,

I understand that maybe you hate your job and all, but was it really necessary to ask my French coworker, with me standing right there, if I speak French? 

Maybe you didn’t notice (although judging from the smirk on your face, I think you did), but not 30 seconds earlier, I had spoken French with you, albeit rather brokenly.  Or maybe you are not habituated to foreigners like me speaking in your native tongue, being that the good portion of them are exempt from trying, what with English being the RULING LANGUAGE OF THE WORLD.

Hey, I’ve got a question, do YOU speak English?  Here’s a better one:  does your MAMA?

Don’t you try me, Mr. Fed-Ex Man.  Not at 9:00am when the effects of coffee have yet to boot up the foreign-language-speaking hard drive of my brain.  I will work you.  I will take you down to Chinatown. 

        And then I’ll get all bilingual on your ass. 

La Coquette

The Rules of the Game

You live somewhere, you have time to get used to things. Eventually, what once shocked and repulsed you can almost become...charming. Take grocery shopping: Dogs sniffing the fresh produce? Adorable! Unrefrigerated eggs in the grocery stores? Neat! Bagging your own groceries? Okay, a big pain in the ass, but you cope.

Customer service, the so-called service clientele, however, remains a TOTAL MYSTERY.

(But, I hear you protesting, what about all the charming little cheese merchants and the knowledgeable purveyors of meat goods? Yeah, yeah, small stores are a wash. Admit it, if you go to a Mom and Pop butcher in the US, the service is usually pretty great too.)

The thing is, Americans understand The Primary Rule of Shopping:

Store People Have A Goal, And That’s To SELL STUFF.

Of course, when you do get a little attention, oh is it sweet! Sweeter than it could be in the US because it’s coming from the lips of a person with a cute French accent and the fact that it’s wildly inconsistent means--dun, dun, dah! You’re always surprised!

A play by play of a recent, typically hyperbolic shopping experience:

I had a bad scar on my knee. My Favorite Texan (aka Noelle) recommends we go to the pharmacy to find something creamy with wound-healing powers. We enter the large and gleaming Pharmacie Place St. Michel. As usual in French drugstores, everyone is wearing white lab coats. Ahhh, uniforms. (LOVING)

They are not exceptionally busy, but we are ignored for the first 20 minutes. Seriously, 20 full minutes. (HATING)

I chase down someone to help me. She ends up being very nice, but in the end, doesn’t have a clue. She leaves to presumably find someone who does. (CONTINUE HATING)

If there’s one thing you can count on in France, it’s that there’s always going to be a lady with a dog willing to add commentary.

Lady With Dog, HIT IT!

Tsk, tsk. The people working here, they know anything. (SINCE IT IS FUN TO BITCH ABOUT BAD SERVICE WITH SOMEONE ELSE, LOVING)

LADY WITH DOG: So, how did you fall, anyway?
ME: Oh, I tripped on a rock while running in Les Jardins du Luxembourg.
LADY: Mais, ce n’est pas possible! There are no rocks in Les Jardins!
ME: (in my head) Huuuh?? Like, why would I make that up, and, if I had, why wouldn’t she just go with it? DUDE! (HATING)

The pharmacist arrives. Turns out he, man-in-charge/possesor-of-knowledge, had been occupied selling dozens of bottles of fortified milk to a middle-aged-woman. Couldn’t Miss Clueless have been doing that? (HATING)

I explain myself wearily and without much confidence in him, seeing that he just spent the last 20 minutes selling someone some milk and ignoring me. He promptly walks away. (HATING TIMES INFINITY)

I’m about ready to do the same when he comes back brandishing a small white box. I take one look at the clean design, similar to the faux-pharmacy style brands you might see sold in the Barney’s makeup section, and I’m feeling better instantly. The name? Cicamosa (a cross between the word for scar, cicatrice, and the word mimosa) It is made from the bark of a mimosa tree. I can’t tell yet, but I’m sure it smells like oranges.

He hands it to me and I swear to God he winked, looked at my leg, and told me to be more careful next time with a devilish “Doctor’s orders miss!” look in his eyes. (OOOH. LOVING)