Mal a la Gorge

I woke up late on Monday morning to the sound of childrens voices as usual. I almost always wake up during the morning prep for school. However on Monday I heard these voices long past the time that everyone should have been gone to school. After emerging from my room into the world of the living I saw Jade curled up on the couch in front of the TV. She was very sick and needed to stay home from school. The doctor said she had strep throat and told her to stay home all week. On Tuesday Anne had to unexpectedly go out of town for a couple of days. FX was already out of town. Feeling the responsibilities grow I immediately began a sneezing routine that turned my head into a bombing ground. There were some predictable disputes over who got to sleep in mommy and daddys bed since they were gone and then high giggle volumes and then after several lectures from me there came the knock at my door with two teary pairs of eyes telling me they couldn't sleep without mommy and daddy there. In the end they all fell asleep much later than recommended. I drove them to school in the morning having many controversies with the GPS on the way there as well as laments over the lack of discipline with which Parisiens drive. Carting all the kids to American school was a very French experience as many mothers elbowed their way through packed halls, even carrying their strollers up the stairs just to deliver their kids to the right classroom. Fortunately most of the teachers were really American and I had the comforting privilege of talking to some motherly treachers who were probably from Texas. When I told Jades teacher that she would not be attending that week she said "Aw, bless her heart," and handing me a note to parents, "here you hun."

I'm getting the hang of driving. I even sort of ignore the few lane lines but I still use my blinker. It doesn't hurt that I'm drivng a tiny little car that tells me when I've arrived at one centimeter from the car behind me. I can now say that parallel parking does not intimidate me. Finally. Buses however, do.

On the night when the kids got no sleep I slept very well....until 2:47 when I awoke from a disturbingly vivid dream that came in many scenarios all indicating that my throat had a patch at the back of my mouth that had been lit on fire and sand papered. It was one of those feelings that you have probably had before but you can't beleive that you have ever lived through this much pain and are not sure f you'll make it this time. When I had drunk some water and lain back down I got to take note of the unique sensory experience of a mere sore throat turning into a head cold a runny nose and a cough in about as long as it takes to read this. I didn't go back to sleep. At all.

After dropping the kids off at American school and bringing Jade home by way of many U-turns, I gave myself a pep talk to get the nerve up to go to the pharmacy and face the complex vocabulary of sickness and medicine. I wasn't worried about it really, I had Jade and I had the magic words.

"Bonjour, j'ai mal a la gorge. J'a besoin de medicament. Est-ce que vous avez cepacol?"

chirp, chirp

The young attractive pharmacist that Agathe had pointed out to me on day two of my stay in Paris looked at me for a moment and then leaned down to rest his elbows on the counter and gave me an intense gaze. Disregarding my request and glancing at Jade he said, "Comment?"(What?)

Suddenly I wasn't so sure of what I needed to say, surely those were intelligible words enough, why didn't he just get me cepacol? I knew they didn't recommend medicine at American pharmacies but the little green illuminated cross that apeared at every corner and someplace in between all over France meant something different. These were like demi-doctors, they give you what you need, all three of my French teachers had told me this in many clear words. Like many other unhelpful stares I'd experienced before I found this one uncomfortable and unnerving. I repeated my request with many ums and uhs and looked to Jade hoping she would help me clear this up. It's happened before that in times of great need the accompanying child has suddenly become MIA; I glance between them and an unforgiving stare that only a tourist in France or a hispanic in the US can understand and they have taken on a shyness that they don't possess giving me a look that says something like, "yeah, why DON'T you get what they're saying?"

Before Jade could jump in to rescure me(as if she were going to or something) this pharmacist said the French equivalent of "don't help her, she needs to speak in French, this is France." Thats exactly what he said. Then turning back to me with that total lack of regard for personal space that I find particularly distasteful under such circumstances he asked,

"Tu es Italienne? Espagnole? Allemande? Anglaise?--"

"Je parle Anglais." I jumped in, "J'ai mal a la gorge," I added for good measure and momentarily considered for the millionth time the peculiar effect limited vocabulary has on the expression of personality.

He clicked his tongue and gave a little mock sigh, "Je ne parle Anglais."Of course you don't, you only parle jerk.

If in that moment I'd had the words I would have said, "that's why I'm speaking French." But instead I said "cepacol". For some reason he decided to take this as a really bad pronounciation of "si possible"(if possible).

"Non," I said emphatically, I did NOT mean 'if possible', I meant 'give me some medicine right now', "le nom de le medicament est cepacol!" It really is, I checked when I got home. He smiled and raised his eyebrows looking to Jade and giving his head a slight shake. I turned to Jade and said that I needed a lozenge or a cough drop or something for a sore throat.

"I understood." I looked at him in disbelief. Or I should say I looked at him and confirmed everything I already thought about Parisien salespersons.

In the end I left with something that was not what I wanted and another lecture in English about the importance of speaking French in France....after I'd been speaking in French and they'd refused to understand and had flaunted their English skills....again.

I make these people sound really bad, and I haven't even told about the fight that the cashier and delivery guy had at the grocery store today, it's everyday stuff. Customer service is just not something they do here. Well, it is but it's not some sort of company inforced thing, it just depends on the person behind the counter. There are plenty of nice people it's just a different kind of manners here. Anne told me today that I was very American since I never reply to the 'how are you?' with anything but positive. I don't know why we are like that but I've always considered it kind of rude to say you aren't good when someone asks. I also think it's rude to let your massive bag assault people as you walk down the street without so much as a sorry or excuse me. But it's just one of those things.

On another note, I started French classes(finally) and so far really like it. I should probably be doing my homework right now. It's an 8:00 class, sixteen girls and one boy. It's really diverse group, and even though many of them speak English there is only one other girl who is a native Enlgish speaker. It's interesting to have the only common language to all of us be French when none of us are native speakers. It also lends a lot of comfort and security to the situation that is completely lacking in the real life scenario.

So thats my little story for today.