mcdo and the po-po.

Well, I’m sitting at McDo, painfully counting the minutes until the kids tire of playing tag in the cesspool known as McDonald’s playplace. Luckily I brought my laptop. Unfortunately McDo wireless wants you to keep your internet searching G-rated. No you perverts, I’m not insinuating that I tried to look at porn while waiting outside the kiddie play area. But I did try to read my fave celeb gossip blog Dlisted (hardly G-rated). Since McDonalds also denied me New York Sex Diaries, I’m forced to sit here and write. Not the worst fate, especially since I should have two weeks of material to share with you all.

The month of May has flown by, right? It’s not just me? I now have 66 days left in the land of plenty. If anyone wants me to illegally smuggle something French back home, let me know, I’m taking orders. Stinky cheese WILL be an extra charge. Speaking of stinking and the month of May….bad transition, I know…it has really started to heat up here. It was in the 80’s Sunday and Monday and the sun was out in full force. Awesome, right? Well, not so much. Apparently air conditioning is a foreign concept.

The train is unbearable. The RER (which is a train but less nice) is even worse. I got stuck behind these foreign (think french colonies…) guys around noon, prime stinking time. The sun was beating down and the train was at least 100 degrees. As it started to move, the wind provided a little relief---at least for them. The breeze from the open train windows artfully scooped up their pit stink and carried it right into my unsuspecting nostrils. One second I was enjoying the soft scent of lilac on the side of the track and the next I was invaded by the overly ripe smell of non-deodorized pits. As the french say, BEURKKKK.

It’s not just public spaces though. Our house is an oven. I can’t sleep at night because I feel like I’m going through early-onset menopause. I sweat, I toss, I turn, and I wake up in the morning and give myself an ulcer from the five cups of coffee I need just to stay awake. Tuesday AND Wednesday night I was up til 4 on the couch watching—get this—dubbed versions of Lifetime movies. As if my life hadn’t already hit an all-time low. There’s nothing I hate more than when the mouth movements don’t go with the words. That on top of the fact that it’s c-list actors doing both the acting AND the dubbing---well, I might as well just have jumped off of a cliff.

So yesterday I had my first run-in with the po-po. Ugh. It’s not the self-important, pretentious attitude they undoubtedly have; nor the way they condescendingly ask me why I ran the stop sign. No, it’s the fact that after they drive off I think of at least one million ways I could have been way more sarcastic or biting with my responses. Don’t you hate that you always think of the good things when it’s too late?

So I know I’ve said it before, but my town is tiny. I don’t even live in the city center, so my little lane of village is really miniscule. There are exactly two roads and they intersect to make a T. Well, I was at the T and wanted to make a right. Previously you just had to yield (it’s a one lane road so if there’s a car you can’t go), but recently a stop sign was installed. Normally I just roll up and make sure there are no cars and go. Like I said, this road is so narrow and small that there is really no harm in not stopping. So I did my little California roll and pulled out to the right. Who did I see? THE PO-PO. They waved. I briefly considered smiling and waving and passing on like an airhead, but like I said, the road was too narrow to pass. I stopped.

Arrogant douchebags in rapist van: Did you not see there was a stop sign?

Me: (wishing I had Stevie Wonder glasses and a big cane) Uh, yea. (Not sure whether my accent will help or harm and thus switching to french)…I stopped.

Them: We didn’t see you stop.

Me: Well sirs, aren’t you supposed to stop just before the white line?

Them: Uh, well…hm, well, you should have stopped on the line.

Me: Well, if I had stopped on the line, you would have hit me. I stopped before and that’s why you didn’t see me. There is a fence.

Them: (looking at each other, trying to mentally calculate the length of my bumper and whether or not my car would have actually been hidden by the fence, then getting too confused to know where to direct the conversation) Well, hm, just pay more attention.

I drove away and gave the the doigt d’honneur while muttering various expletives. I mean, of course I ran the stop sign. But what the hell were they doing driving down the frickin’ one lane road of Chaumes-en-Brie?! After mentally fuming for at least twenty minutes I came to the following conclusions.

a) I should have spoken only English.

b) I should have driven off. Nothing like a country lane car chase, huh? It would have taken them 30 minutes to make a 3-point turn in that rapist van.

c) I should have faked some sort of urgent health issue. Like labor. Men distance themselves from vaginal issues.

As it turns out, cops are universally douchey. I have to say though that the french police, while 50 times more smug and cavalier than most policemen, let me off the hook a little more than an American cop would have. The best part of it all is that I had Zoe in the car with me. Bless her heart, she is a bit of an airhead. After I pulled away I was thinking "oh shit, Zoe is going to tell her parents". Only thing she said? "Who were those guys?" Whew.

Nothing else to report here. Took the kiddies into the city today and they were ridiculously well-behaved. We shopped til we dropped—or they did at least—and then we ate a huge lunch and vegged out. The only downfall—it was raining. Tomorrow is Friday and I couldn’t be happier…although the kids only had two days of school this week. Thanks to a jour ferié on Monday, no school Wednesday, and a strike today, I got to sleep in a lot this week. Which was needed considering not one, but two nights last week I went to sleep as the sun was rising….

Le sigh.