The Problem(s) with People

My adventure began as all should: with checking in to the Delta Sky Club before the flight to Paris. Due to my recent persistently red-eyed condition and my conviction that nothing interesting would take place until I reached Marseille late the next day I had decided to forego contacts and equipped myself only with glasses. Luckily I was close enough to the unexpected action in the Sky Club that I could still make out the fuzzy edges of the players.

A man with a ponytail in a Canadian Tuxedo (also known as the Montana Tuxedo, Denim Tracksuit, or Really Not Something Anyone With a Mirror and Eyesight Would Respectably Even Consider Donning, Much Less Wearing Outside the House) leaned across the check-in desk arguing with the nice Sky Club lady. Neither possessed a sufficient grasp of the English language to communicate effectively; he spoke in the provincial Appalachian dialect known affectionately as “Redneck” and she was of the school that might call his speech “Ledneck Diarect”. Henry Higgins would have had a field day.

I gathered (and this was not an easy deduction) that he flew a lot (this was particularly difficult to comprehend, as I presumed he was not the type to fly a lot and thought I had misunderstood) and believed himself entitled to entrance at the Sky Club. She insisted he needed to be elite, which threw him for a loop because he could not fathom what his ear had to do with anything. They finally determined that he was, in fact, elite – in the sense of frequent flyer miles earned, anyway – but that as he was flying on United during that particular trip he could not enter the Delta Sky Club.

The entire exchange baffled me and I quickly withdrew to the bar until it was time to leave the country.

Despite my lack of French/common sense I managed to successfully find the bus in Paris that aided my changing airports (I still do not know why one city needs two airports, and as I find CDG as charming as an airport can be I think Orly should be turned into something useful, like a combination coffeehouse/used bookstore/ice cream parlor with a racetrack specifically designed for Aston Martins and Maseratis). When I sent the Judge a message during my bus ride to tell her about the wild poppies sprinkling the side of the road, thinking she would find it as romantic as I did, she responded, “Take pictures, not heroin.”

Given the aforementioned lack of French/common sense I suppose that may have been acceptably necessary advice.

MHK met me at the station in Marseille with croissants and éclairs that we ate standing on the station terrace overlooking the city. Marseille is notable for its harbor, which used to be the largest in the Mediterranean, and marked by an enormous church that sits on a steep peak above the rest of the city. It has a name but I quickly re-Christened it “Castle Mountain,” as the church looks like the castle in which I someday envision living. My first move in any city characterized by inhabitants speaking a language I do not is to rename all the major roads and landmarks. Sometimes this is simple: the road that leads me from MHK’s dwelling to the harbor is “Rue Paradis,” and it really took no imagination to begin calling it “the Paradise street that passes by the Pizza Van Man.” “Pizza Van Man” was even less of a stretch, as it denotes a man who has set up a van in a square off the Paradise street in which he makes and sells pizza. “Pizza Van Man” was not my creation, but MHK’s; incidentally, pizza made in a van is quite delicious. Each slice has one little black olive in the very middle, which strikes me as pizza’s equivalent of a cherry on top.

Yesterday afternoon MHK and Canadian M* led me on a tour of their favorite parts of the city, and today I struck out to sit serenely at teahouses and cafes while listening to the riggings in the wind and revising articles, resumes, and cover letters. As I always do in Europe, I feel that I am practicing the carefree attitude of an unconscious muse who floats through the streets secretly considering philosophy and life, a Parisian Daisy Buchanan with a MacBook Pro. At times like these I think I should find a way to become a graduate student in Europe, where I might actually do schoolwork because I find the study spaces so appealing, but then MHK reminds me never to place my trust in the expertise of someone with a non-US degree (Oxford excluded). Apparently in France medical students make a habit of getting drunk, going to discos, and sleeping for appallingly short periods of time before showing up to a class in which they are encouraged to perform C-sections on real women. MHK added that I should not have a C-section in France, which was obvious anyway because surely anyone who has flown across the Atlantic in the seat ahead of a baby has come to the logical conclusion that pregnancy only leads to misery for everyone within howling distance.

As Lednecks are known for their proclivity to procreate and no doubt contribute greatly to what I am told is an overpopulation problem, I can only assume that their increased appearances on international flights will quickly turn overpopulation into a non-issue.


*Last name unknown. Like the British I failed to formulate a plan for how to proceed in the case of confrontation with a situation that did not fit into the current mold; unlike the British I pride myself on snap (if not sensible) decisions. I have ad hoc elected to use a denotation system that combines countries of origin and first initials.