Winter here is…odd. It’s rarely especially cold (unless you happen to be on the back of a speeding scooter, although I would imagine that it’s worse on the front of it). I can tell, though, how far north we are just by the sheer lack of light. I don’t usually note when the sun goes down, but I do notice that when the dog gets fidgety around 8:30am and feels like taking a spin around the block, it hasn’t come up yet. In the summer it can stay light until 10:30pm, so I understand that this is only fair in exchange for that, but really, when we have so little daylight to begin with, does it have to rain all the time?
Fortunately for me, Jolie is no fonder of the rain than I am; when she hears it she loses any ambition toward fitness in favor of sleeping in a little ball under the radiator.
I can relate.
It is, actually, just the sort of weather I always associated with England–the dark, gloomy, rainy…I didn’t know that I was in for that nonsense here. Apparently, though, the climate isn’t the only import from across the Channel.
So I got this cell phone, right? With a plan and everything, this time. We got it online to minimize the hassle, which was obviously naive of us, because they seem to live for hassle here. A week later I got a cheery letter informing me that my phone had no doubt arrived by now, but that it naturally wouldn’t be able to make outgoing calls until I return the two-page contract along with a photocopy of my ID and bank info. (“We did the contract and the payment stuff online,” Nick protested, but weakly. We didn’t expect this, true, but it’s not exactly a shock by now; know what I mean?)
That would still be fine, though…if I had ever received the phone.
Two trips to the post office later, I was on hold with Chronopost to figure out what the problem was. (We already knew what the problem was, actually: it was the combination of the lame, lame French postal system and our MIA gardienne–she never seems to be around to open the door, and they never bother to leave a notice.)
While on hold, I started practicing my package’s tracking number. I’ve noticed that the French like to group numbers; they give their phone numbers in sets of four pairs (“twenty-seven thirty-two fifty-four nineteen” instead of “two-seven-three-two-five-four-one-nine”), and tend to repeat numbers I’ve said singly back to me in arrangements that seem…well, arbitrary. At times. So I was looking at my nine-digit number, and practicing it as three three-digit numbers, so that I would be prepared.
I didn’t give a single thought to the letters on either side.
I was already gearing up for the numbers when I tossed out “H…Z…”
“Excuse me?” the rep interrupted. “‘Z’ as in ‘Charlie’?”
Huh?
“No; ‘Z’ like…”
And I could not think of a single French word that I was sure begins with Z for a second, and in that second Jolie got spooked by some random noise and came running to me, barking and woofing and jumping around like a mad thing.
“‘Z’ like…sorry, it’s my dog…oh, for crying out loud, Jolie, no…Z!”
That went on for a good ninety seconds before the guy transferred me to his English-speaking colleague.
Who didn’t understand me at first, either. Because the French say “zed.”
Weirdos.
For future reference, I used “Zaire,” and was keeping “Zimbabwe” in my back pocket, but “zéro” would probably have, you know, worked too.
Yesterday afternoon I stopped at an ATM, and found myself behind an elderly and none-too-steady man who couldn’t seem to figure out where his card was supposed to go. He turned around to leave, and I offered to help, sliding the card into the reader for him. He followed all of the prompts to withdraw money, but was stumped when the screen told him to take his card back. His hand hovered near it, but only one corner of the card was out of the reader, and he couldn’t seem to see it. He kept looking back at the screen, and then staring at the reader. And while I hovered there, weighing my wish to be helpful against my fear of frightening or offending him, the machine gave up on him, and took his card.
“Why does it say that?” he asked plaintively.
I stammered.
“You have to go into the bank,” the man behind me in line said.
“I will, then, but where is my card?”
“I think it ate your card,” the man behind me said, as diplomatically as possible.
“Who did?” the elderly man demanded indignantly. You have to love those gendered pronouns.
I passed him again about half an hour later, as he was trudging determinedly away from the bank. He didn’t look up, so I don’t think he recognized me, but I felt guilty all the same…all the more so, I think, because during that half hour I had taken some small comfort in the idea that I am not the only one here who occasionally wonders why every little thing has to be so very complicated.