Le Walk, Le Trip, Le Splat

I’m told that the French find Americans annoying. Not all Americans, I reckon. Just those other Americans: the white tennis shoe-wearing, loud talking, McDonalds-loving Yanks who give the rest of us a bad name.

I politely greet French people with a “Bonjour” and thank them with a “Merci.” I understand their currency (the Euro); I don’t expect them all to know English. Most of all, I don’t want to bring bad attention to myself as an American. If I act like an idiot, I might bring (more) disgrace on my country. This is my thought pattern when I travel abroad: Be respectful. Don’t act like it’s the first time you’ve crossed the Atlantic. And, for God’s sake, don’t give the French another reason to laugh at us.

With that in mind, let me share a moment from my vacation to Nice, France last month.

Scene: My sister, Donna, and I are crossing an intersection on the way back to our hotel.

The action: We are walking past the midpoint of the intersection where there is a minor (very minor) elevation in the pavement.

The result: I fall with a loud splat into the geometric center of the intersection. (Did I mention that the pavement is in pristine condition?) To my left is a handful of French motorists that are either (1) surprised they are getting a comedy show or (2) feeling pretty righteous about all that’s wrong with America. After taking a few seconds to comprehend what I had just done, my sister helps me up and we make our way to the other side of the street.

Did they really know I was American? Maybe not. But the spectacle I made obviously pegged me as someone who was not French. No self-respecting French person would go splat like that.

Splat [noun]. The act of falling on hands and knees in a comedic fashion. See Three Stooges, Jerry Lewis.

The good news was that I didn’t break any bones. But, once back at the hotel, I saw that my knees were badly scraped and bruised. This resulted in a trip to the pharmacy where I asked for ‘le Bactine.’

More than six weeks later the scrapes have not fully healed, nor has my pride. I still wonder how I managed to trip (and fall) over what was no more than a couple extra molecules of pavement. I can only chalk it up to the thrill of being in the South of France. I'm just pleased I could entertain the French on that beautiful January day.

The Vortex of Unconsciousness

See our couch. This is the nicest, priciest piece of furniture we own. We bought it a little more than a year ago to provide a sense of class (and leather) to our living room. The leather is supple and much nicer than we deserve. The only problem was that we didn’t envision the couch with us (and the cat) camped out on it. Night after night. When you think of the aesthetics of furniture, you don’t often picture how you look littered in that image. Look at the blankets and pillows. This is a lived-in couch. Which is part of the problem.

The beautiful sofa of our dreams is also a vehicle that transports us to the land of dreams night after night. By that I mean we can’t stay awake on the thing.

Take Friday night. By 9:00 pm Hubby, me and the cat are lined up in a display of stupor. Much like the victims of Pompeii, we’re almost frozen in time. Hubby is upright, head leaning back with the remote in his right hand. I am wrapped in two blankets and leaning toward him for warmth. MJ the cat is the only one who appeared ready to spend a good, long time camped out on the leather magic carpet, all curled up and cozy like felines do.

Around midnight I stir because my neck hurts. Hubby opens his eyes and gasps that three hours have slipped by. “How did that happen?” he asks. We are astonished that we were so thoroughly knocked out; our slumber so deep that we thought we were tucked in our own bed. Yes, this is an indication that we have no control over our impulse to fall asleep, as if we’ve been drugged (or have a carbon monoxide problem in our house).

Except the exact same thing happened the previous night.

“We have a problem,” I sighed. “We’re in a rut.”

It’s true. After an early evening of dinner and work chat, there isn’t much reason to maintain any sense of alertness. If you can’t fall asleep with your spouse, what’s the purpose, right? Nothing on TV captures our fancy these days. The sky still darkens early. And the power of the couch yet again drains us of all remaining energy. The cat joins in because he long ago got over the fact that one needs to be productive in the evenings.

Daylight savings time begins in a couple weeks. Will we be less likely to slip into the ether? Until the weather warms up I doubt it. So the Rip Van Winkle family carries on. And let me say that I have a better appreciation of that story than I did as a child. The man was a genius. He understood that there are certain periods in life (winter) when it’s best to sleep away time.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

My IQ has plummeted. Consider the following over the past few days:

• Got a speeding ticket (in a speed trap!) because I was thinking and driving at the same time
• The next day, took Hubby to dinner and cluelessly drove past exit
• At restaurant, got up to use bathroom and walked, with gusto, into the men's room!

"I think I had a mini-stroke," I told Hubby, returning from my restroom adventures.

"I think we should get the check and remove you from public view," Hubby replied. He has not stopped teasing me about the men's room incident. I'm amazed he isn't more concerned about his wife becoming a turnip before his very eyes.

Why am I having these episodes?

A piece of advice. Do not type 'memory loss' into WebMD. Alzheimer's and dementia come up right away followed by 'brain.' WebMD is an amazing tool but can cause a stress-related aneursym if you enter vague symptoms. Instead I used what little brain power I had left to sort through more realistic reasons why my brain was resembling a bag of rocks. (See this link for details about my ongoing problems with antihistimes.)

It's entirely possible that I took one too many Allegra pills. Plus I had allergy shots about the same time. Maybe the combination of a slight antihistimine overdose and the infusion of death-causing allergens was just too much for the noggin. Anyway, I slept it off, skipped the morning Allegra and started to move from amoeba-ness back to human thought patterns.

But Hubby's men's room jokes continue. I see an Allegra-laced cocktail in his future.