Dispatch from Adam - 2010

Oui apologize for the inconvenience...

Yes, there have been a few.  France is quite an interesting place.  If you should stop by a brasserie for a little something to eat anywhere in Paris, they seem to be able to handle that fairly well.  We have not even found the surly waiter.  But waiting?  We have found that.  Get in one line to get your number in line.  Then keep an eye on the monitor that displays what number is coming up; not next, but more like several events beyond next.  Then, after an eternity, you are declared next.  “Everything looks good”, the lady with control of the computer says, but all you have to do now is to find the line at the train station to do what might have been easier accomplished at the train office downtown, especially since you have already waited in a line.  Maybe the presence of lines in a train office are somehow more appropriate, since tracks are lines that should not cross.  People got angry in there, since some lines were obviously crossed.  I think that is why they call them train lines.

Did I mention that the internet access on one of the most modern trains in the world did not work?  They apologized for the inconvenience, and in three languages.  E-mail me mine, please.

The restrooms at one of the most prestigious museums in the world did not work either.  It seems like the restroom attendants did not work very much, unless their job was to look at you with a surly face as you walked in with designs on your zipper.

I  think that all the surly waiters switched jobs and got into restroom maintenance.  Hey, I just arrived here in your country.  Don’t blame me for the biblical flood or the smell...I am just an American who has needs.  All of those people in there, speaking French on their cell phones...that’s really their restroom, madame.  It’s their country, as I am just passing through.  There is never a line to get into one of those.

Oh, and as things were running smoothly all over Paris, the government decided that everyone needs to work just a little bit more before they retire.  I think some of them are already retired on the job.  That’s all Mr. Sarkozy is saying to his people:  we all have to work in order to make the nation work, and I agree.  His private restroom will stay clean if he decides it is a personal priority.  As for the rest of the citizens of France...they have to decide as well.