Au Cochonnet Marin

 

You might or might not be aware of it, but French is a tricky language, ready to trip you the first chance it gets. So, on you next vacation to the land of Molière, handle the talking part carefully or you might end in the slammer for seditious talk.

“Prendre son pied” (taking your foot) has two distinct meanings.

It can mean “Taking great pleasure in doing something that is judged to be very pleasant” or “Taking great pleasure in a sexual activity.”

 But let’s backtrack a little…
Today, prodded by my wife, I took a rather long walk. It was pleasant (and politically correct) but I ended up with sore feet. I sat down for a few minutes, and suddenly like St. Bernadette of Lourdes, I saw the light… and heard a voice saying, “get a pedicure, you knucklehead!”

Wasting no time, like in a trance, I drove immediately to a nearby nail salon for assistance. In my hurry to get relief, I forgot to wear a mask and was rebuffed by a small Asian lady. Mask, mask she said.

I apologized and ran back to my car to get my anti-virus shield. I was then authorized to come into the crypt to “take my foot feet.”
Let me now interject a small footnote to my story.

Men are stupid brutes, only dreaming of fights and conquests. Women on the other hand, left the fights to their significant other, and told them they would pray for them… (in a spa or nail salon- detail not clearly mentioned in the conversation).

The men only heard “I will pray for you” and left for war eager and happy. This state of affairs lasted for a long time. The women quietly “took their feet “regularly while never mentioning where they prayed.

But they could not keep this secret indefinitely. Some transgender discovered “le pot aux roses” and alerted his mates. Our women secretly go to a pleasure place and never told us about it. Let’s form a convoy to protest against this practice and put an end to this.

But after some men discovered the pleasure of been pampered regularly, by some very attentive geishas, they refused to join the revolt and started to visit these infamous pleasure palaces.

Today I did it and feel much better for it. Men, wake up, and like your women, enjoy these (not so guilty) pleasures. Go to a spa or nail salon, and “take your foot”… regularly. You will feel better instantly… trust me.

Alain

I love gadgets… as a matter of fact, you probably don’t know it, but my middle name is Gadget. You might also ignore that this word is (probably) a derivation from the French word “gâchette” (trigger).

I just remembered that “gachette” rhymes with “braguette” (a trouser fly) and one of my (shady) friends liked the word so much that he called his pooch “braguette”. The dog nevertheless wore his name with pride. But I am digressing…

Gadgets are the new toys of the modern era. They are very intelligent; you can talk to them and ask them to perform a task. You will never hear any recriminations… they will obey you like a faithful mutt, and if they could (I know that it is coming) they would wag their tails. You don’t even have to raise your voice. The only prerequisite is to speak distinctly.

And even if you speak with a pronounced foreign accent, they still will understand you and execute your command. Humans, by the way, are not as smart as these gizmos… For instance, my wife has to repeat a command about 3 times before I can grab its meaning. A gadget gets it on the first try. This clearly demonstrates how much smarter than us these things are.

But gadgets, like some beloved pets, have a brief life span. Within a few short years, they become obsolete and fall out of favor. When you buy a gadget, you tend to forget that there are things called “upgrades” lurking in the shadow. These party-poopers usually show up a few days or a few weeks after you have taken your new toy home. This also means that after 2 years max you won’t be able to resist the lure of a new model and will jilt the old one for a new one. In other words, a gadget has the lifespan of a Hollywood romance… maybe a little more.

Talking about gadgets…

“My wife has an electric blender, electric toaster, and electric bread maker. She said, “There are too many gadgets and no place to sit down!” So, I bought her an electric chair.” — Red Skelton

 Even the electric chair (or the guillotine) is now obsolete even though they had a nice run as gadgets. But despite their usefulness, the public abandoned them. Like you fell out of love with the transistor radio, the pager, the Walkman, the iPod, the DVD, the BlackBerry, and the early bulky mobile telephone (with an antenna) that I used for work.

But I still love gadgets, no matter how short our love stories have been or will be.

“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

Alain

Grocery shopping, or shopping in general, is a chore for me… and for most true-blue American males I suspect. A necessary task, but a tedious one, and when I am coerced into doing it, I want this drudgery to be over fast… Like swallowing a spoonful of cod liver oil. Women on the other hand are born with a distinctive shopping gene and love to do what they are programmed to do. I by far, prefer to do my shopping online, with a drink in my hand and my cat on my laps. It is called “efficiency through comfort.”

Now, I just saw on TV5 (the French television channel), a short video praising a new fad. Supermarkets management in France is now encouraging their checkers to blah blah blah with their customers. Don’t rush, engage your patrons… they say.

“For two years, some employees of this Loire-Atlantique hypermarket have also had the mission of making conversation with their customers, while scanning their purchases.” 

 “We talk a lot about health, misfortunes, but also about family and small pleasures, explains the hostess, in office for 12 years. It’s the client who decides, I don’t oblige. Yesterday, a little grandmother stayed with me for 20 minutes. No worries, there was no one behind! »

What kind of nonsense is this? A new kind of Chinese torture? When I shop outside my bunker, I want it done fast. Like pulling off a tooth. Do it quickly and let me go.

You need to know that contrarily to American supermarkets where the checker packs your goods, in France, the customer has to bag his own merchandise… while the checker sits, watches, and (probably) used to sigh when it took too long.

In America, when the person in front of me engages in small talk with the checker, I feel like screaming. Hey mister, you are infringing on my civil rights… you are wasting my precious time and I resent it. You don’t want to vax? Fine. I don’t want blah blah blahs.

I am not heartless, and I empathize with lonely people who want to gab, but a crowded shopping establishment is not the place to do that. If you are lonely and need to talk, there are shrinks and escort services for that. These people will leisurely listen to you, and I understand that they do a commendable job.

So, no blah blah blah for me in supermarkets, please. I am all for progress, but there is a time and place for that. I reserve my blah blah blah time for my animal friends (especially dogs) who understand me well and vice versa. We always have unhurried conversations that leave all of us happy… without wasting anybody’s time.

« Le bla bla c’est bien, le concret c’est mieux. ».

Alain