Oh, the France

I could be a movie star, or a robber. I never know in this country. The other day I was walking home and several men on the street kept staring as I approached them. The one, holding a baguette sandwich, suddenly got an excited look on his face, and he hurried up to me and asked for my autograph. "Why?" was my natural response. Then the other two guys are looking at me, scrutinizingly, one saying, "Non, it's not her," the other, "Yes it is her!"...guy with the sandwich is still looking at me eagerly, says, "Well, you are ****, non!?" Non. I'm not her. I laugh, walking away, still being eyeballed. Then on Friday I go to my local Monoprix...it's a small and more friendly version of a WalMart here. Groceries upstairs, home/beauty/clothes on the street level. I grab my toothbrush, soap, mascara, head upstairs for the only thing I needed up there: a package of toilet paper. I was going to check out upstairs when I remembered that I wanted to find a water-filtering pitcher. So I went back downstairs. A plain-clothes guy approached me: "Did you pay for that already?" he asks while reaching over my arms to touch the pack of toilet paper. "Non, not yet." "Oh, well, you cannot be downstairs with that. You must pay for it upstairs." Hmmm. Okay. I had already inquired, when I was new to the store, if I could pay for items from the downstairs, upstairs. Yes, not a problem. So I tell this plain-clothes security man..."Oh, I see...I can carry things upstairs, but not downstairs." Right. I ask if I can just grab the water filter and head right back upstairs to pay. No. I was standing right next to the stairs...needing to go into the ailse RIGHT next to where we were talking. No. Not possible. You must go upstairs immediately to pay! Really!? Wow, alright. So I go...and he's coming with me. I ask him, yes yes yes, he must now accompany me to make sure I pay. Hmmm. Even wants to tell me which cash register aisle to get into! He waits at next to the cashier, he watches me, he then goes to walk with me back downstairs. He leans in and confidentially says, "You know, I really should have taken you as a robber, but I know you are not....so you just have to obey this rule and then we won't have to take you into security!" Wow, alright...yes yes yes, I understand now the rule, thank you very much sir, and no, I am not a robber. So I'm back downstairs, now looking for the water filter. A tall man with a "Security" sweater is now talking to Mr. Plain-clothes. Security dude walks up to me and says, "Mademoiselle, I need to see your cash register receipt." WHAT!? Are you joking!? I actually started laughing. A 6-pack of pink toilet paper was causing THIS kind of commotion? So then I ask him where, in the store, is this ever-so-serious rule posted so that the customers KNOW not to make such an infraction. Oh, it's posted somewhere. "But WHERE?" I inquired, now getting completely annoyed. Oh, but it's a rule. RIGHT, a rule that is NOT posted anywhere. I argued and laughed and finally suggested that perhaps they make the rule visible. And left the store. They didn't carry water filter pitchers afterall. But the worker in that department couldn't tell me that. She just gave me a "Pfff" and said she had no idea if they carried such a thing....I should just look around to find out! But then today I had a moment of redemption. I went to the outdoor Sunday market, and at one of the butcher's, I asked for chicken breasts. The butcher pulled out the whole chicken....threw it on the wooden block, and proceeded to whack off it's head, it's legs, and then dive into the center to extract the center white meat breast. Whew! I got skin and all, a few bones. But he liked my eyes. Thought I must be from the north of France. (Usually I'm mistaken for a German, so that was a completely new identity mistake!) So he gave me a champagne-corked bottle of blond beer! It's local to some region of France, though I don't know where. Perhaps the North. Just tucked it right in there with my chicken wrapped in paper.