I had a rather interesting commute to work today.... I left very late because I had to call the internet/tv/telephone company and yell at them. They give as good as they get, so I was cowed and I probably won't have internet for the rest of November. They'll still charge me of course, by directly taking money out of my bank account, but if I send a reimbursement form by registered mail I should receive a response yes or no about the reimbursement in about three months. I tried to change my payment method to something besides direct debit from my bank account, but that apparently requires a 400 euro deposit, billed immediately, and probably taken directly out of my bank account. I don't remember that being mentioned when I was signing up....

So I walked to the bank in the mood you are usually in after talking to your local cable company-- after wasting half of your monthly allotted cell phone minutes-- after hearing a completely terrible American song about taking your spanish lover to bed on the hold-line for the cable company for 15 minutes....

I got some money from the bank, and a guy came up to me and said, "I saw that you just got money from the bank." This is not the kind of thing that you want a stranger to be saying to you, especially after my Equadorian friend's wallet was stolen right after she went to an ATM [she later found out that the guy had spied on her while she typed in her code, and after he had her card he made three separate withdrawals of 2000 euros each (the limit on the machine) in a matter of 10 minutes]. But the guy was very unsketchy-looking and had a tape recorder and a microphone, so I stopped to talk to him.
He explained that he was a journalist, and he was doing a piece on how French people feel about their banks. I told him that I was sorry but that I wasn't French. He said that he guessed that wouldn't work then, but then he asked me some questions about how American people feel about the bank, and whether recent events in world finance has changed the way that people feel about their money. It is true that almost everyone in France has a debit card instead of a credit card. They pay for most things, even very expensive things, in cash. Their bills are directly debited from their accounts. They are very suspicious of most things that involve credit and they like to keep their money close. Americans, on the other hand, have gone off the edge of the planet as far as charging things on credit, to the point that many people don't even pay off their credit cards completely every month, instead spending a month ahead of their pay checks and ending up SOL when their paychecks are delayed or they get fired.

To my great luck, we had just studied journalism and "expressing opinions" in french class, so I had all of my "I distrust..." "In my opinion..." "For my part..." expressions ready to use.

Once in the metro, I was chillin' and not really paying attention to anything when I saw a little tiny Japanese girl with arms no thicker than my wrists. She had a giant suitcase and a big duffle bag on top of the suitcase. When the train stopped, she rushed through a crowd of people to the next door down. She was too late in arriving, so she missed her stop. I was trying to figure out why she didn't just leave out of the door that she had been in front of, but then I realized that she didn't know what to do to make the door open, which is a big problem that all the tourists have here. She seemed to realize the way to do it after examining the exit latch, so I watched to see if she would get off at the next station. A french woman exited out of the door where she had originally been standing, but as the japanese tourist tried to lift the latch on her door, she found it impossible to move (the hydraulics kick in when the train comes into the station, making the doors impossible to open by old or weak people). She probably could have opened it, but now she was confused. She was about to try to drag all of her stuff back through the crowd of people to the open door when I got up out of my seat, ran the three doors down the subway to where she was standing, and opened the door for her in time for her to get out of the train. "Thank-you," she said gratefully in a small voice.

HEY FRENCH PEOPLE! If I can tell from a car away that she's having trouble working the door, then the twelve of you sitting on your asses directly in front of the door certainly have to know that she's having trouble with the door. OPEN THE DOOR FOR HER!

That was really bad, even for French people. I felt so sorry for the poor girl who would now have to drag that giant suitcase up the stairs of the station, down the stairs to the other side of the tracks, take the subway back to the last station, opening all the subway doors as she goes, and then dragging the giant bag up the stairs in the right station. I almost got out of the car to help her carry them. I probably should have.

Sometimes Japanese tourists break my heart.

Lol! The French..... I have developed a dislike towards them even without having to actually be/been to France and directly dealing with them. Everything about the French (including their language) is so darn difficult.
» Nuttz on 2011-11-09 06:22:50

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