Maybe I’ll bring back fierce anecdotes from my trip to France. Like the woman sitting next to me at Color My Nails did. Overhearing my travel plans, she fell right into her routine, something she’s probably repeated many times, saying, “So I told this waiter in Paris who’d been so mean to us, I said, ‘Well, if it wasn’t for us, you’d be speaking GERMAN!’ ”
Her story was from 1977. Still fresh, still her first response on hearing that another American had the temerity to travel to–gasp–Paris. THAT was her memory of France. That tired old saw of how we saved the DAY for France, saved the DAY. Her fierce salvo to a most likely over-tired, under-educated, low-paid waiter in a restaurant 30 years ago.
She sputtered at my response about “not really needing to throw that old story into their faces anymore” and jangled her keys as she pushed out the salon door.
And I wonder what I’ll say when I get my nails done in Paris next month and someone mentions traveling to Salt Lake City. What tired old hurt will I regale the women with. What representation of the entire country.
Post a Comment