Wednesday, September 9: Reader Submission

I received this rather angry yet totally valid reader submission from Buzz, who once again called me out on being too French by "prolonging" my vacation...

You gave us a taste
Got us all addicted
And 'French-Style', you quit

You said just August
Did you lose your calendar?
It's now September

My mornings were bright
The inbox would ding with joy
Where's my Lifeku, bitch?

He speaks the truth...

I'm back

It appears as though I am finally back.... after what seems like years of waiting for a new internet connection. I swear, if France didn't give me 6 hour work days, 5 weeks vacation per year, and really good bread I don't know if I could handle it here without committing customer service murder. After several visits to the SFR boutique, two outbursts of crazy laughter when I just couldn't take it anymore, and mysteriously picking up my modem at a dry cleaner behind my house (don't even ask because I don't know), I now find myself reconnected.

Today's lifekus are obviously about how a country as developed as France (yes we have electricity and running water) can make things that should be so easy so freaking difficult:

Nonsensical France
You brought us the face transplant
But Wifi is hard??

Dear France Telecom
Screw your lame monopoly
Not another cent

Sunday Poll: May 31

French Customer Service...

Friday, May 29

This lifeku is dedicated to the fact that I will be sans internet for at least 10 days as I leave crap internet provider in the dust to switch to SFR Neuf...

Orange Internet
Your service is a big joke
I hope you all die.

Saturday, May 16

I used to talk about Marie-France all of the time... a pigeon who somehow managed to find refuge in the gaps between my 300 year old walls. Marie-France would walk around cooing and strutting and doing other annoying pigeon things at all sorts of inappropriate early hours of the morning. I would be comfortable in my bed, enjoying that moment in between asleep and awake when the sheets conform to your body and are softer than they will ever be, and cluck cluck coo coo went Marie-France, waking me from my peaceful bliss. I cursed her name every morning and began considering whether or not it was worth it to punch holes in my walls to find her... and then one day, she was gone. Just like that. It was the first day I noticed that I had slept until 9:30 without interruption that I realized she was mysteriously absent, and that I was mysteriously relaxed and rested. For two years I lived in peace (obviously not counting those times when my guardienne decides 6:00 am is the perfect time to sort the glass recycling), a glorious, pigeon-free peaceful Parisian existence with baguettes and accordion music and berets and strikes. Then, last week, I was up at 6:30 making myself a cup of coffee when I heard a most unsettling scratching noise coming from behind the stove. The sound of claws against loose drywall... and then, I heard the cooing as I formed my angry fists of fury:

Pigeon in my walls
Loud early morning cooing
Murderous rage

Friday, May 15

Everyday, my guardienne (a French version of a super) performs various tasks throughout the buildings and courtyards like sweeping, taking out the trash, watering the flowers, and of course washing the ground. The ground is so very dirty that it needs to be washed absolutely everyday. With fresh water. She acts as if this is the most logical necessity that could have ever existed. Ground-washing. I mean seriously, it's the ground... it's just going to get dirty again... but she continues to waste fresh drinking water by hosing down the courtyard (which is rather large might I add) because in her world the environment must not be important:

Idiot waster
You don't have to rinse that
Because it's the ground

Friday, April 24

I have frequently expressed my personal feelings on the Human Cube that is the Paris Metro in the morning... the other day, while I was being compressed between a woman with way too much perfume and an adolescent listening to Rihanna & T.I's "Live your life" way too loud on his iPod (yes, his), when I noticed the man in front of me had begun huffing and puffing in a most disgruntled way. He shimmied his shoulders with a look of panic, not unlike a battered wife, and began looking around at all of the horrible people who were clearly abusing his personal metro space. At this point he began muttering to himself, making annoyed little comments about how people "are" these days.

May I point out that while all of this is going on there's a pregnant woman behind me who can barely breathe and a 10 year old late for school who has one leg balanced on the door frame in an attempt to create more space, not to mention the fact that the movement Disgruntled Man's shoulder shimmy was primarily ricocheting onto my face. After about 4 metro stops like this, he began to raise his "distress level," by which of course I mean "volume." The huffing and puffing turned into a whiny tantrum as he pushed his body in all directions trying to just get the Parisians off of him... except: this man clearly neglected to make the basic observation that THE PARIS METRO IS FULL DURING MORNING COMMUTE. He failed to acknowledge that he is in no way special, and in no way deserves more space than the 80 year-old woman who is holding her cane against the ceiling so that it doesn't get randomly thrown out of the train car.

People like this make me crazy. Or perhaps I should say amused, because it's not worth the effort to go crazy (or as we say in French pete les plombs). People who feel that they are superior enough to get their panties all in a bunch when they are treated just like everyone else, but at the same time don't have the money or initiative to take a taxi. Or walk. Or ride a bike. I mean seriously, Paris isn't that big. Which of course brings us to:

Whiny metro turd
I cannot create more space
Where there is none left

Monday, April 13

This is a Chateau. A French Chateau. A French Chateau where I just spent the night for the wedding of a friend, during which all sorts of shenanigans took place. Some of these shenanigans were fun, some were dangerous, and some were just plain inappropriate.

When you are staying in a chateau with 100 wedding guests, including the majority of your friends, you don't necessarily tell yourself that you need to sleep with the door locked... and you are making a terrible mistake. Because it's possible that you will be awoken at 6:30 in the morning by 30 people singing and chanting in your room, including some random guy you've never seen playing a guitar in the corner. These people might yell at you, taunt you, make several failed attempts to expose your naked body from under the covers... and you may choose not to speak to them for a little while....


Drunk thirty-somethings
Champagne to the sleeping face
Inappropriate

Friday, April 10

In France, people use an exceptional amount of Franglais. This is the application of English words with a French accent in the middle of a French sentence. An example of this could be, "J'ai un super feeling avec les animaux" which means "I have a great feeling with animals." However, "I have a great feeling with animals" doesn't really mean the same thing in English, so this sentence could more appropriately be translated, "I get along well with animals." Another example of this Franglais can be noticed in the overusage of the word "hardcore" as in sentences like, "Putain, c'est trop hardcore" (meaning, "Sh** that's really hardcore). The French LOVE this word and will use it as often as possible.

When speaking Franglais, for some reason the speaker feels compelled to refer to everything in the plural such as un cookies, un muffins, or une chips (a cookies, a muffins, and a chips, respectively.) I've tried to explain that cookies can never be one, the "s" means by default there are at least 2, but they don't care. Now, having explained this Franglais business, I present for your approval the most bizarre of all Franglais mistakes:


That's right. Donut's. There not just inappropriately plural, they're possessive. These donut's own something and they're not letting go. Which brings us to:

Possessive donuts
You are not the boss of me
Let me live my life

Thursday, April 9

Recently in Paris it has been exceptionally beautiful outside. Warm, sunny, perfect blue skies with white fluffy clouds... and everybody's out to enjoy it. First of all you should know that the French love to talk about the weather, in general... all of the time. Second, Parisian people completely change when the sun comes out, shedding their faux frowns for light, happy smiles as they bask in the sun with some obscure juice like strawberry or melon. During moments like this, the outdoor cafe seating, or terrasse, becomes a full out war for the best places in the sun and once you get a good spot you don't move for a long time. Which brings us to:

Terrasse au soleil
Parisian snobbery
I’m better than you

Tuesday, March 17

I just spent one full week with no internet. Zero. None. Zilch. I basically wanted to die. My internet stopped working one day, at which point I made a phone call (which I then did not know would precede many, many other phone calls) to my internet service provider, which would be Orange. Also known as: Quasi-Fascist-Anti-Humanitarian-Internet-Mongers. QFAHIN. Or something. First they gave me one explanation, then another, then another, then no internet and some more phone calls later, yet another. And of course none of the 15 people I spoke to actually knew what was wrong.

7 unconnected days and 100 hours of Orange's hold music later, it turns out that my account was mistakenly closed. Indefinitely. Why? Because, like a total idiot, I paid my bill online. This was obviously too much for the computers at Orange, who provide internet service I remind you, because their computers didn't take my payment into account. Wait, let me re-phrase that: Orange was more than happy to physically take the money out of my bank account, they just didn't register that they had done that, because they're awesome. So for 3 months in a row, as I was thinking how convient it was to pay my bills online, for Orange I was actually not paying. Even though they were taking my money. Really, I love France.

So how did I have to fix the situation? This is where the awesomeness reaches a whole new level, because once an account has been closed, you have to open a new one. Once this process, comparable to a root canal, has been completed it takes UP TO 15 DAYS to re-open the line. There is, of course, nothing that Orange can do about this. Obviously. Because it's not like the line was functioning a couple of days ago or anything. I began to feel like an idiot for having believed the woman who claimed to have put my file "in priority." I even had one guy who said I would receive a text message when the line was open again, and it obviously is because I am posting this right now, but I never received said mysterious text message.

Let me stop right here to handle any questions or concerns you may be having with this ridiculous situation: If you are asking yourself, "Why didn't she just get a new internet service provider instead of waiting the 15 days?" I'll explain why this is not possible. It turns out that ALL OPENINGS OF INTERNET LINES IN FRANCE TAKE UP TO 15 DAYS, no matter what company you are with. And since I had already done 5 days of waiting, I wasn't about to go back to the beginning. You feel me?

Back to resolving my situation... I called again Saturday to have an estimate of when it would come back on, where yet another idiot gave me some more useless gobbelty gook crap of an explanation equating to up to 15 days, but he did offer to give us one month of internet free. After I already paid for the month of March, which is not over by the way, and during which I did not have internet for about 10 days, in order to open the new account. It's times like this where if I didn't have social security and 8 weeks paid vacation, I would totally move back to the States just for the customer service. Anyway, this morning, when a certain someone found themselves at the house with me after a certain accident (more on that later) it seemed that the internet just HAD to work. So we called yet again. First the "service commerciale" and then of course, because one phone call is never enough, the "service technique." Finally, when I got someone who actually knows computers on the phone, we managed to figure out the problem. It turns out that my stupid livebox had reset itself, and I had actually had internet since Friday. As you can imagine, I am far too tired and frustrated to be angry about this. I was just happy when she re-sychronized and my internet magically came back. Naturally my experience inspired a lifeku or two:

French “service technique”
You do not know anything
I hate you so much

Internetless life
Ostracized empty black void
I feel so alone


Most of you have had a similar experience, send your life-without-internet haikus for dailylifeku@gmail.com for next week's Reader Submission.

Thursday, February 19

Yesterday morning I saw one of those American tourists that makes me pretend I don't speak English. You know who I'm talking about: loud, obnoxious, slightly twangy southern accent, guide book, points at things, and asks how much this costs in "real money." [hangs head in shame] I figured he was going to McDonald's before making his obligatory stop at The Mona Lisa to complete his "Parisian Experience." In fact, I am almost positive that if you removed his North Face fleece, you most definitely find a t-shirt underneath with the words, "Git R Done." Honestly, tourists like that should be quarantined to Tennessee and Oklahoma, never to leave their precious amber waves of grain for fear of being spoken to in another language. [insert southern accent] "Hey, Pa! She's got a funny accent. Can we take her home and tie her up in the barn?"

Loud American
Lost on the Paris Metro
Watch your fannypack


PS: Is that not the most amazing picture ever?

Saturday, December 20

Ordinarily I should be waking up in the United States, in my Moomie's house feeling all sorts of comforted and warm and cozy. But I'm not. I am still in Paris. It is still cold and gray. Why am I here? You have good reason to ask this question, since any logical person would think to themselves, "I purchased my ticket 6 months ago, so I am flying on the plane pertaining to my ticket." Unfortunately, any logical person would be extremely wrong in thinking this, since clearly I am not on my plane. No no, when I arrived at the airport (3 and half hours early by the way) I was told that there were no more seats. I thought that was really funny, since my seats were already written on my reservation... but this is where it gets confusing because those seats that I chose when I made my purchase were not, in fact, my seats. They were "hypothetical" seats that I may or may not have recieved (in this case, not.) Air France explains that my seat was actually never mine and when I paid two grand for a ticket, I wasn't really "buying" anything. I was hypothetically reserving, just in case they felt like they might want to give it to me. After 6 hours on standby and not ever getting on the plane, I find myself at home again preparing to repeat the same process tomorrow a la Groundhog Day, with some Air France taxi vouchers and a "Compensation For Denied Bording" voucher for 800 euros. Yes it's really called that.


Fancy pants Air France
You sell things that you don’t have
Not unlike stealing

300 seats, yet
330 tickets
Where does that make sense

Woman at counter
I do not care if you’re chic
I will still hit you

Sunday Poll: December 7

Think fast: The French

Formation Civique

Today I had my formation civique, which is a mandatory full day of learning fun required by France for immigrants to get their papers. We spend 8 fun filled hours learning all about the magnificent principles of The Republic, what's legal and not legal, the ideas behind democracy and socialism, and the subsequent changes some immigrants will need to adjust to.

There were two question and answer periods, the first pertaining to the government and boring crap like that (FYI France has regions, departments, and communes, and I still don't understand the difference between them). The second Q&A pertained to citizen's rights and human rights, which apparently really need to be spelled out for certain people from certain Middle Eastern and African countries where it happens to be legal to beat and circumcise your wife. I won't name names.

This horrendously long day inspired many lifekus, so I've decided to put together a little something I like to call the Civique Formation Series:

Part I: Morning


Monotonous drawl
You might really be able
To bore me to death


Crafty Chinese Boy
Way to get away with
The stealthy headphones


Canadian girl
Why don't you know your own
Independence Day?


Unpleasant woman
Pull that crap with me again
And I'll pop you one


Part II: Afternoon


Man in the back, no
You can't hit your wife in France
Because she talked back


Other man in back
It's always illegal to
Hit your wife in France


Yet more men in back
Polygamy is also
Illegal in France


Formation Civique
Useless French information
My whole day wasted


Fin.