Some have expressed concern over the car situation.

I am ok.

I got the car Friday, about 6 or so weeks after we told the dealership we wanted it.

To keep things positive, I will not bring up the delays. Like when they denied ever having given us a date we could pick it up, or called us to tell us it was ready with no hope of being able to pick it up because the boss was on vacation until (next) Friday.

I will not mention that.

To keep things light and breezy I won’t mention the different, conflicting and just plain old wrong information we received… That would be counterproductive.

I shall not delve into that subject at all.

And I most certainly will not mention the 3 hour delay between arriving at the garage and signing the paperwork because they were installing a new printer.

I am probably lying about that.
(technical note, a used car place not associated with a brand or brands is called a garage here.)

---

The day was rainy, very rainy, windy too. It didn’t feel like a summery rain either. There was a chill in the air. There was thunder and lightning.

My daughter and I arrived and were guided to sit on the couch. The office itself is actually just two 20′ shipping containers side to side with the walls cut out and the sections welded. One side is all windows, you could see the rain coming down in sheets.

Driven rain, Steel walls and a steel roof… It was a little loud.

We were guided to the the couch by the owner (Grass Fed Dairy Farmer ‘lookin trump lover dressed in overalls and a fuzzy shirt that makes him look like a toddler inflated to 1.8 meters ) … So Mr Grass Fed the tells that the new guy will help. It is his first day on the job.

The new guy is of middle eastern descent. I am shocked to see someone working for this place that is anything other than white. You know, that shade of white.

After what Grass Fed said about trump’s policies in an earlier visit, I am shocked, shocked I tell you that he is not moving to ‘Murica to work for ICE. Maybe he is working on himself, or maybe New Guy is a hot shit car salesman who’s abilities can’t be discounted.

New Guy finishes up with the person that was there before us and invites us to sit at his desk.

Except he can’t print.
He can’t release the car without a signature.
He can’t print anything for us to sign.

There is a new printer on his desk, there is a new printer box on the floor. This is a fresh crime scene, the blood is still pooling, the gun is still smoking. I had seen the printer box on the floor, and being somewhat computer literate, I began to extend tendrils of thought into the different eventualities that await us. How many among us can say we have successfully plopped a new printer on our desk and simply printed.

New Guy tries, he tries in ernest. He calls tech support. Meanwhile Grass Fed is field stripping the machine down like it was an AK-47, pulling off that annoying immobilizing tape which New Guy missed… and we wait.

Grass Fed’s tension is gently palpable. He knows he has fucked me over, he wants me done and out so he can move on, but he is a prisoner to the printer as well.

We all are.

At some point Grass Fed tells me that the old parts from the service are in the trunk. Wow? I process this. I assume this is simply the way.

My daughter and I are sitting there, glancing at our phones.

New Guy swears, in two languages, French and English: “Shit, Putain du merde.”
(Putain du Merde means shitty whore, but it is common enough, it is sort of like an english fuck-shit. It is not really indicative of the quality of a prostitute any longer.)

Grass Fed then goes and fetches the car. He tells us he is going to pressure wash it. You know, to wash the torrential rain off. This has my brain squirming a little, like a ceramic pot filled with eels.

The car is now double clean, and is sitting parked 2 meters from me.
(A meter is sort of like 1/100th of a football field for those of you that use ‘Murican freedom units. 1/100th is like pennies in a dollar. There are 100 pennies in a dollar…)

The engine is running, waiting, taunting.
I feel my will disintegrating. I feel like grabbing my daughter and making a mad dash for the car.

We wait from 10:15 until 12:00.

There is a famous chef, Philippe Echebest that owns a chain of oily food restaurants. There is one just at the end of the parking lot. We decide to steel our intestines (you need to read that aloud with a strong emphasis on “TINES”…in-tes-TINES like the british would) I ask this for no other reason than I think it sounds funny.

The maître d’ is a nice enough guy, he is dressed down to nearly nightwear, a white tee shirt and herringbone pants. He looks like he should be wearing slippers.

Echebest’s place is sort of like Olive Garden, You get an urn of fries and an urn of salad. I have the salmon, it comes on a chafing dish, the candle burns long after the food is gone, making the oil slick bubble, in effect chafing it.

It is like the La Brea tar pits.

Not that it matters, but my daughter has a burger
(pronounced like bur-GAIRE). It is not served on a chaffing dish.

I have a cafe.
That was probably a mistake.

Up to this point I have been mostly calm, cool and collected.
The Ugly-Ass American is locked away. Locked away behind a firewall of emotional defenses. A firewall of acquiescence. A firewall that just simply accepts all of this as a France thing and not anything that is affecting me and me alone. I know that somewhere else in France there is a guy suffering through a similar situation and accepting it.

The pot of eels is squirming, but it is under control.

The coffee erodes my composure. The molecules of caffeine are pecking away at my self-control.

If you are old enough, you remember the movie Fantastic Voyage with Raquel Welch and Donald Pleasance?
Remember the red corpuscles bouncing against the hull of the Proteus?
It is exactly like that.
Exactly…

I maintain.

We head back.

There are a couple of ladies at New Guy’s new desk. They are chatting, they are having pleasantries, like one would have at high tea. Nothing about cars, registration, paperwork… nothing pertinent to the purchase of a new vehicle.

I swear this went on for 20 minutes. I am convinced that New Guy is hitting on them, but then again New Guy is a car salesman. He is clearly selling them on the idea of a car.

I record the conversation and send it to my wife, she confirms what I suspected, this dude is just chatting away.

My brain, like those eels in the ceramic pot, is writhing, double-time now, and the ceramic pot is no longer smooth and glazed. It is rough…

I can sense the conversation wrapping up, the placing of hands on thighs as they get up just to show me that they are in fact getting up, and Mr. New Guy makes eye contact with me and holds up 2 fingers and says, in passable English, 2 minutes.

22 minutes later he returns. It is now about 3 hours and 3 minutes since we originally arrived.

He invites my daughter and I to once again sit at his desk. He is beckoning us.

---

Le Happy Ending

The printer does indeed function!
I do indeed sign the paperwork!
There were missing details that we were assured were not necessary, you know the type, the ones that are not necessary until they are necessary.

I get my wife on the phone (the true Francophone of the family).
She helps convert the problems around the necessary details into solutions.

The pot of eels is now a roiling boil. I need out of the office. I need my car. I have been wanting for 2-1/2 years, I have been waiting for 6 weeks.

I get the keys to the car!
I drive home with a box of car remains in the trunk.

Special thanks to my wife. Beyond her pure organizational skills and get shit doneittude, she simply rocks.

I will cover the car and its delightful quirks in another post.