Sunday, June 22, 2008

Je Suis Pleine

No, not really.

It’s a common mistake for students of French to use the auxiliary verb être (to be) instead of avoir (to have), when translating phrases like “I’m finished” and “I’m full.” This has humorous consequences.

If you were to say “Je suis fini” to a waiter, you would have just told him/her that you are (metaphorically) dead. If your waiter is a true Parisian, they will laugh at you in the face before taking your plate away.

Just to be clear, this has not happened to me. I say as little as possible to waiters here, as they are frequently (with many exceptions, of course) THE absolute rudest people possible. I’m not sure if this is a cause or a condition of the fact that tipping is not compulsory in France.

Now, what if you’re at your new French boyfriend’s house for dinner and his mother is a terrible cook? You want to be polite, so you take a few bites, smile widely, and coo “Je suis pleine.” Hopefully, his Catholic grandma is not there too, because you just told the whole room that you are pregnant.

I say all this to get to my nearly unrelated point that approximately one out of every four twenty-something, Parisian women I see is pregnant. By the size of their bellies, I’d say it was either a very cold November, or an extra festive Christmas.

This gave me an idea.

In my constant quest not to be propositioned, I have been wearing a ring on my left hand and scowling enough to make my face stick. This does not work. The predator has a keen eye, and zero inhibitions.

So, I decided to start acting pregnant—patting my belly a lot, wearing the front of my pants low, and always keeping some air in my lungs. You’d think that if it wasn’t an indication of couple-hood, pregnancy would at least decrease desirability.

I realized when I was pulled over by two male ambulance drivers this afternoon that this does not work any better. The only (very irritating) solution is to keep one of my male trip companions around whenever I leave the hostel. A single girl (or even group of girls) will always be viewed as a potential pick-up.

3 comments:

Jodi said...

Are you having fun....or what??

Anonymous said...

HAHA... you are so silly. Sounds like you are having a lot of fun. I'm glad you got to see the Turkey v Croatia game. AMazing! Too bad they lost against Germany :( but they played an great game!

ginatheballerina said...

Hi Heidi

Je suis une pizza! Ask a French person to sing you that song. That's pretty much all we did in French class last year. It sounds like you are having a blast!
We are at Gina's house and she has six dogs including Cowboy! (A Boxer, 2 Bichons (french breed!), 2 Shepherd mixes, and a Lab.) It is 97 degrees and humid today!!!! How's the weather in Paris?
We miss you!!

Love,
Jillian, Gina,Grandma, Maggie, Molly, Max, Brownie, Coco, Cowboy, and Rowdy (poor kitty) :)

PS. Gina is sick of dogs!!!!!!