France Tales

When you walk into the locker room, everybody stops what they are doing, looks up at you, and says in quite a loud voice, Bon Jour/Soir, as if you are long lost friends. They then wait for you to return the greeting. It is a little unnerving at first. It is like on Cheers when someone would enter the bar and the whole placed screamed their name.

You are considered quite rude if you don’t say Bon Jour/Soir right back. I don’t dislike it, but it is hard to get used to. You really can’t just go to the gym unnoticed, slink in and slink out. When you change to leave they do the same. I am always wondering, do I know this person, did I meet them at the dog park, etc. There is such an intensity to the greeting that you are sure they must know you, who would greet you so heartily if they didn’t know you?

Okay, so you are thinking, every gym in France, really? I don’t know but since I have started going to the other gyms in the chain I belong to, I can say all the gyms in the chain have this phenomenon. I asked a real live French person about this and they said yes, it was customary.

Even the staff do it. Yesterday I was leaving the gym. I passed the front desk. Now, normally I would say Bon Soir, au revoir, etc. The worker at the front desk was deeply engaged in a conversation with a member and I thought it would be rude to interrupt just to say good evening. I kept walking past and started down the stairs.She practically hopped over the counter and chased me halfway down the stairs. I thought I had forgotten something. Nope, she just wanted to say Bon Soiré to me. We stared at each other incredulously for a split second. She was thinking how rude it was of me to leave so abruptly and I was thinking, gee you really didn’t have to do that. I said, merci vous de mème, Avec Plaisir she said and she marched upstairs.

I mean I appreciate the social aspect of everything, but if you really want to practice good customer service (I know I know not in France) how about cleaning the locker rooms once in a while. I’d like to hear you say avec plaisir after that.

I have been going to the gym chain Euforie. It has 4 locations. I started just going to one to get used that one, Pomme. I have been going to a 2nd one, Oxygene, to branch out. I think no matter where in the world you are there are standard things that come with the gym experience, and I’m not talking about weights, classes, and locker rooms. People.

Tupac has been dead for like 15 years, why are you wearing that RIP Tupac dress around the gym still? Yes, it looks like a dress, so while you may not understand the English words written on it, you must have some understanding that when you wear an enormous flowing shirt that hangs down to your knees and then strap on a big weight lifting belt over the shirt, cinched at the waist, you look like you are wearing a dress or like the fashion of the 80’s where women wore big belts over their shirts, hanging down the side of one hip. I know that is not what you intended by the grunting noises you make but that is what is perceived. You spin me right around baby right around etc etc etc.

Who let the peacocks into the Tecktonik class?

Your New Jersey track suit isn’t cool. I mean the colors are nice, it fits you well, but really, have you been to New Jersey?

I guess you are not really working out if the weight stack doesn’t slam down hard with each repetition. I’ve been doing it wrong all these years. Who knewed.

Remember I told you that “Je comprends française plus ou moins mais avec le bruits de la classe, pas de tout!” I think I said it once at the beginning and once while you insisted on talking me through the routine instead of demonstrating it for me. Nope, talking louder won’t help. Really, all I need you to do is to do the routine, I will get it if I can see you do it. Please don’t try to cue in English, really stop talking and just do it. No I don’t don’t need la classe pour les débutantes.

I’m sure I will have more gym tales. I know I sound a little cranky but gyms attract strange people and I like to people watch. If everyone were so normal I might not be as amused and I might not go because I’d be bored. So I don’t really intend to sound mean, it’s just a release.

They must think similar things of me, for example, why is he wearing shorts to the gym, I mean why isn’t he wearing snow pants or at least rubber pants like the rest of us, the Americans and their shorts.

This is PC Magazine’s 2007 editors’ choice for best webmail-award-winning letter. I don’t think the woman’s response was so eloquently funny, but the situation sure was. The things corporations do to personalize your experiences with their products, I think you’ve gone a little too far guys. Here is the letter in it’s entirety.

A real letter to Proctor and Gamble

Dear Mr. Thatcher,

I have been a loyal user of your ‘Always’ maxi pads for over 20 years and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the Leak Guard Core or Dri-Weave absorbency, I’d probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I’d certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts.

But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can’t tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there’s a little F-16 in my pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? Ever suffered from ‘the curse’? I’m guessing you haven’t. Well, my time of the month is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body.

Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I’ll be transformed into what my husband likes to call ‘an inbred hillbilly with knife skills.’ Isn’t the human body amazing?

As Brand Manager in the Feminine-Hygiene Division, you’ve no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customers monthly visits from ‘Aunt Flo’. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying, jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it’s a tough time for most women. In fact, only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the violent urge to shove her boyfriend’s testicles into a George Foreman Grill just because he told her he thought Grey’s Anatomy was written by drunken chimps. Crazy!

The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in Capri pants… Which brings me to the reason for my letter.

Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: ‘Have a Happy Period.’

Are you fu**ing kidding me? What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness - actual smiling, laughing happiness, is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James?

FYI, unless you’re some kind of sick S&M freak girl, there will never be anything ‘happy’ about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlua and lock yourself in your house just so you don’t march down to the local Walgreen’s armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory.

For the love of God, pull your head out, man! If you just have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn’t it make more sense to say something that’s actually pertinent, like ‘Put down the Hammer’ or ‘Vehicular Manslaughter is Wrong’, or are you just picking on us?

Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flex-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bull sh*t.

And that’s a promise I will keep. Always!

Best,
Wendi Aarons
Austin , TX

I came across this video that was visually appealing and intellectually stimulating. It was made in 2006 and it is already a bit dated for information. Instead of lamenting “the kids these days” maybe we should be thinking about what it all means. As a former teacher I too had objections to some of these “modern” things but we are clearly on the cusp of something enormous, we cannot continue the way we are going, and yet what lies ahead. I don’t really care about “when I was in school”, where are we headed?

While looking around for information about the history of Toulouse to use in upcoming posts, I came across this site that has beautiful panoramic pictures of Toulouse. It is in French but all you have to do is click on one of the 12 still photos and it transforms into an interactive panorama in a Quicktime movie. Pan right and left, up or down, see all the beauty of Toulouse. Here is the link.

We finally have the apartment looking nice so we decided to have a party and invite the only people we know here, my fellow classmates from the Alliance Française. We are a motley crew from all over the world. We ate, drank, and danced. It stopped raining so we could spend some time on the terrace and balcony. We really had a good time. See the pictures below.

PS: A word about the blue pictures. I am trying to post a lot more pictures here. I have a rule, if I have to spend more than 5 minutes in Photoshop with a picture I don’t include it. There are 24 pictures in this gallery so that would have been a lot of time. The pictures that are blue I liked the content of but couldn’t correct in Photoshop well enough so I did this generic effect to hide the imperfections. Anyone have any tips on automating in Photoshop with the batch command so editing the photos doesn’t take too long?