Parisians can be so charming, in fact, if you are pleasant with them, they will charm the pants off you. Tonight we went to a pharmacy to get some stuff for Marc`s shoulder which has been hurting him for weeks now. I love the Pharmacies here in France, you can find natural herbal remedies for everything, even creams that make you lose weight. French women never go to the gym, they just put creme on their thighs; I love that. The Pharmaciste; a cute petite blonde, was showing Marc all the herbal anti-inflamation medications and joint support formulas; stuff you can only find in a Health Food Store in the States; never a Pharmacy. Marc is always at ease and jokes around and flirts with everyone as he was with this cute petite blonde. I was attempting to speak french to confirm my knowledge of what she was saying since I know about the use of herbs and holistic meds, I`m not sure which one of us charmed her more, but when we checked out she put handfuls and handfuls of product samples in our bag. Skin care lotions; anti wrinkle creams; hand creams, we needed a bigger bag. I thanked her profusely and then we giggled and tried on all the perfumes on our way out of the store; she came over to me and handed me a present, a full size jar of anti-wrinkle cream! I was floored; not so much by her kindness but I just couldn`t help wondering if she was trying to tell me something...Salope!
Later we went for dinner at Marc`s favorite restaurant, Le Balon de Ternes. He loves the large platter of oysters; shrimp; mussels; snails, all raw..yum...I had a choucroute and a moulton chocolate cake for dessert. Sipping wine and giggling like insolent school children in a fancy restaurant; Marc kept trying to guess which waiter flirted with me the time I was there alone, telling me how beautiful were my eyes and my smile... and did I have to leave now...and he will wait for me to return...oh I love France...I was only semi-ammused at the time thinking he probably told this to every lady dining alone but as we left the restaurant, the same waiter stopped in front of me and said bonsoir, I almost fell over as Marc called me "Salope!"
Women are always falling over Marc and making goo goo eyes at him. At the real estate rental office, he had 3 women giggling their asses off. The accountant was a young country girl who could barely talk...and her teeth were aweful. Her boss said it was the first time she was in a meeting with a client, I guess they usually keep her behind the desk. She was gushy toward Marc, she sat very close to him and giggled at everything he said. I raised my eyebrow a couple of times, and when she offered her card to Marc, her boss stopped her and said that wasn`t necessary, the Salope!
Lucifer make antichrist's TV moment
10 years ago
My poor Alecia has such disdain for French women's teeth. As if teeth were THAT important. Or boobs. Or gym-toned thighs. Non! None of this counts for le Français. The only things that are of importance are: the thickness and sparkliness of the blue eye shadow glistening on eyelids, the thickness and deeper red of the lip liner that goes over fat lipstick and finally and most importantly the sheerness of the hosiery and height of the heel. The rest is accessoire... So, yes this young peasant lady showed with no uncertainty that I was very much "son style" and I cannot blame her for her good taste. Now, it is not that she could barely talk, more that the way she formed her sentences was out of whack. The way you build a sentence in French says more of your social extraction than the use of four-letter words, no matter how rude and depraved, within a sentence built à la Balzac. This girl was no Balzac. And I must admit that her teeth were indeed a light shade of black. Not like, black, black. Light black. Almost grey. To make it sound more attractive, an American ad would call it grey flannel. Which is not that bad really. But her eyes were very well over made-up, she did wear pants three sizes too tight, and of course very high heels. So, I succumbed to her peasant charms and fanned her thirst for my athletic hairy body by doing what us French know works best to charm women: don't push your pecs out, especially when you don't have much, don't flex your biceps, especially when you can't scratch your own head because of a shoulder inflamation, don't pretend you need to relax your built-up upper back to show off your 6-pack, and don’t take that deeper, chest-based voice used in bars to overcome the enchanting mixture of deafening rap rhythm, baseball commentaries and basket ball in depth interviews ... just make 'em laugh. If expected to be utterly smart and classy, act stupid and stay in the gutter. If expected to be antagonistic and demanding, be gentle and submissive. Walk into a pharmacy. Instead of clubbing the head of the three retirees waiting in front of you for canes, walkers, diapers, narcoleptics and condoms (all free thanks to French social security), wait patiently and joyfully talk to them. By the time you reach the pharmacist who in France has the power, knowledge and aura of an African village sorcerer (that includes a brand new Mercedes in a private parking garage nearby), you have earned your reputation: you are sympathique. Push the sympathique a little more by showing the employee helping you that she knows much more than you do, that she has your health in her hands, that she has the power to help you live a few more days in discomfort or help you die on the spot, and now you have a friend. Should the friend have a stake in the boutique, she will want to lure you back in and work for a long term buying relationship by giving you special additional discounts and giving you meds otherwise unobtainable without a signature from the Health Ministry. If she is merely an employee, she'll fill your bag with free samples totaling a month of treatment in important health areas.
ReplyDeleteLa minceur. Thinness. Contrary to an Anglo-Saxon, Puritan and unsubstantiated belief that equates hard work with results, French women don't get thin from sweating their gluts out. Keep the silk stockings and garters, Mesdames, for we offer you a much more pleasant way to diminish the diameter of your thighs, the thickness of your calves and the happiness of your belly. Use cream. Apply twice daily or better yet, ask your man to apply on you as a prelude to a more (amore?) private indoor gym interlude, and we guarantee you will lose 3.8 inches around within 2 months. And your skin will be softer. Voila. Who needs jogging when you run after each bus that speeds as you almost reach it? Who needs elliptical training when you climb and run and stand for hours in the Métro? Who needs Pilates when you go and stop and go from one boucherie to one fromagerie to one boulangerie back to another boucherie spécialisée in lamb, all this on foot, pulling a poussette with more fresh organic food than your local Whole Foods? You want to get thin? Trust us, use cream. Another big concern for public health: your skin. You have wrinkles? You lack oligo-marino-oceanic-algic-immunorepoliposoluble elements. It's new. It's French. It was found on Catherine Deneuve's bottom left cheek and Brigitte Bardot's now triple chin. Don't stop smoking. You can't anyway. Nicotine delivery systems with Stetson hats were created especially for you to try to stop and never succeed. Don't stop wine and apéritifs. The French created those and they’ve convinced many generations that you risk less health degradation by swallowing 3 bottles of wine par day, than by guzzling water tinted with mercury from poorly designed pipelines. And do keep eating stinky cheeses, preferably unpasteurized, raw, covered in urine-smelling straw and complete with lots of blue edible streaks of mildew. It’s all good for la peau. Just add cream. And forget toothpaste. Black teeth are ok. Grey teeth better. White teeth? Too… I don’t know… Californian?! Mmmm, no. Perfect. Same thing.
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