Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Sunday, Jul. 23, 2006 - 11:52 a.m.

Warning: Wuss Alert

I have this thing when I get frustrated. I cry. I don't mean to, and I certainly don't want to, but the more amped my level of frustration, the more the tears flow. It's really irritating, especially in the middle of a disagreement, when the other person thinks you're crying for other reasons, and really, you just want to throttle the hell out of them for being so damn stupid. It's one of the things I really hate about myself, and once the tears start, it feeds into a vicious cycle, because then not only am I frustrated at whatever caused the problem in the first place, now I'm also frustrated because I'm crying and it makes me look weak or unbalanced or both.

Imagine, then, my horror at bursting into tears in the middle of a crowded bakery this afternoon. :(

Let's all just pause for a moment.

Pausing.

Still pausing.

Okay.

What happened was, I needed to do laundry today. But before I could do that, I needed to get a measuring cup for the detergent and change for the washer. So I load all my stuff into my grocery cart - having arrived at that solution to carrying my things in a plastic bag like a homeless person, not that there's anything wrong with homeless persons - and head over to the Monoprix to buy a measuring cup and get change. As I wait in line to pay for the cup, I realize I have no idea how to ask for change. So I ask the woman behind me if she speaks english (Est-ce que vous parlez anglais?), and she gives the standard french response, "Oui, un peu. Pourquoi?" ("Yes, a little. Why?" - They are a cautious people, the French. They are also "a blinky people," to quote MP, but that's another story altogether.) I tell her I need to ask for change, and she tells me how to ask it. Not very patiently, and despite repeated requests, not very slowly, but she tells me. So I get to the lady behind the register, and I repeat the french the other lady told me (incredibly horribly, I might add), and the lady repeats it to the woman behind the register so that it's comprehensible, and the lady behind the register blinks at me (hence the blinky thing) and then says in english, yes, no problem. Awesome. So I pay for my measuring cup, and she gives me folding bills and coin. Mostly folding bills. I ask her can I have five 1 euro coins instead of the paper, and she says no, and closes the register.

Um, okay. That is not helpful. The Monoprix is the only grocery store for over a mile. I am at a loss. I should tell you that when I first got into the store, I asked the guy at the front if they carried measuring cups and where to leave my bag, and he refused to speak english or answer my questions. He did tell me to ask someone else, but he was not in any way what one might even remotely refer to as helpful, or even polite. Civil is about the best word I can think of for him. So I ask a kid, who tells me where to leave my bag and where a measuring cup might be located, and obviously I found one. But the point is, already this is not off to a good start. So when the lady refused to give me coin, frustration kicked in. Frustration at not being able to do something so simple as ask for change for the damn washing machine, at my complete and utter lack of language skills when it comes to freaking french, at my short memory for vocabulary words and inability to sort out the different words in spoken french, and frustration at the difficulty in achieving change even if I did speak french fluently. I started blinking tears as I left the store. But I figure one can't walk thru the streets of Paris crying, so I tell myself to suck it the fuck up, it can't be that hard to get change. But I'm also thinking fuck, people, would it kill you to have a little compassion and show some courtesy? I'm making an effort to speak your language. I try communicating in french before I ask if the person speaks english, so it's not like I'm some damn yokel wandering around not bothering to assimilate. And I'm a human being in need. Fucking apply yourself to humanity just a little, for crying out loud.

So I walk down the block to the laundromat, and I'm blinking like crazy and telling myself to suck it up, while also growing more frustrated at the refusal of some people to extend themselves just a tiny bit to someone in need. I walk into the laundromat, and there's a woman there who speaks a little english, and she tells me the kind women at the bakery nextdoor will give me change. And again I am frustrated at my lack of mastery of french. So I go into the bakery and wait for the lady in front of me, and then I try to repeat to the women behind the counter my horrible rendition of what the woman in the grocery store rapid-fired at me, and it comes out predictably incomprehensibly, and both women just blink, and the next thing I know, I have completely dissolved into tears. And while I was trying to stutter my french, 5 people have come into the store and are standing in line behind me, and now everyone thinks I'm insane, because I'm very nearly sobbing. In public. In front of strangers. In a country full of stoics who do not make a public show of emotion, even laughter. So I start apologizing and trying to get my shit under control, while explaining that I'm not nuts, just really frustrated because my french is so atrocious.

It did not go well.

But one of the women figured out I needed change for the laundry, and then everyone in line jumped in and started trying to help, and I got my 5 euros of change and then went back nextdoor repeating merci beaucoup for all I was worth and feeling like an idiot, totally humiliated. I would have felt the same way in America, but at least there I could have said look, I'm sorry, I'm just having a really bad day. Here, I just look like a damned lunatic. :(

But at least I quit crying.

Now I'm standing in a laundromat, trying to figure out a washer which it turns out does not need change, because in France, the laundromats are automated, so you go to the little machine in the corner and tell it what washer or dryer you're using (after you put your clothes and soap and stuff in), you feed it a bill or change, and it either takes your money or takes it and gives you change, then starts the machine in question. So I feel like an even bigger idiot, because I got all worked up over literally nothing. Thank god there were two womenn in the place who helped me figure out the soap and settings, because French laundry detergent boxes are really confusing. Even the woman helping me couldn't figure out how much soap to use, and she speaks the language, so I really had no shot in hell of that one. She eventually decided to use the amount she would use for her stuff, regardless of what the box said, and she explained how much that would be and how to fill the compartments and set the temperature. Then she left, and the other woman schooled me at some stuff I've already forgotten, the main part being the verb "to learn," which I think was apprendre. As in, j'apprends (I am guessing at the spelling, since my damn verb conjugation book lists verbs willy-nilly, rather than in alphabetical order, which would make sense) francais. Eventually, she left, and I went nextdoor and got a sable, which is a big shortbread cookie and some quiche lorraine for dinner, and I apologized again to the very nice lady behind the counter, and I finished my laundry and came home.

I can never go in there again.

::sigh::

Peace out,
Katie

ps. The next time someone comes up to you who is obviously struggling with the language, please take the time to explain to them in a helpful manner how to solve their problem or find someone who does. Seriously, that's just simple common decency. And also, I have totally decided to write a book on how to live in France, because all the books about that tell you crap like how to buy a house and look for a job or fill out the paperwork you need to open a company. They do not explain that how laundromats work or how to ask for change and where to go to buy things.
po, kd

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