Au Bureau de poste (or – why I love the French)

Today was not a red letter day.

I went to the market and bought a hat, a scarf for a gift, and to the bookshop for a little book to complete the gift.  Then I came home, forced myself to do the yoga practice I had skipped in the morning, and wrote a greeting on the card to go with the present.  I also exchanged my sneakers for boots, and my hoodie for a coat.  I had being feeling a little scruffy compared to the French women ‘of a certain age’ who were out and about this morning.

Then I went out again.  To get some cash out of the hole in the wall, buy an avocado* and two lemons, visit La Poste to send off my gift.

I have been to La Poste before.  The skinny balding man who looks after the postal inquiries is getting to know me.  In theory I should not have to go to the counter.  There is a machine that weighs your mail, notes the destination, and gives you the correct stamps.  But as I have now explained several times (en français), the machine tells me there is no such destination as Nouvelle Zélande, or New Zealand when I try that just in case.  There is Nouvelle Caladonie, and even Nouvelle Scotia, but no New Zealand.

Today La Poste was very busy.  This was a problem because I had memorised what I had to ask for, and there was a real danger I would forget those two longish sentences if forced to wait too long.  Furthermore, as I joined the back of the queue behind a diminutive, dreadlocked young man, his little dog (breed uncertain) decided to pee all over the floor, and I had to skip aside sharply to avoid damage to my flash boots.  The young man was a little, but not too much, put out.  He first admonished his dog, then picked it up and comforted it.  To be fair it was a rather gorgeous little puppy.

Then we stood around awkwardly for a while, me standing a safe distance back, and those in front of us smiling benevolently at what was after all no more than one might expect of a little puppy.  The man behind the counter continued serving a particularly difficult customer, and the queue went nowhere.  It was clear that every single person ahead of us had a particularly difficult parcel to post, and there were many complex explanations and a lot of head shaking before any one problem got sorted.

In the meantime the queue was building up behind me.  People looked impatient but resigned.  At some stage the young man with the dog interrupted the conference at the counter – an act of amazing audacity that he clearly had to build up to – and obtained, without comment or fuss, a bucket and a mop.  The puddle of pee that I had been avoiding disappeared to be replaced by a large, slippery wet patch on the linoleum floor.  From then on he had to take it upon himself to warn every newcomer that the floor was slippery.  Since most of those coming in were around 90 not out, it was a very important warning.

We got talking.  He told me the puppy was three months old.  I said it was naughty, and smiled to show  it was a joke.  This was a conversation in French, and that is about all there was to it, although I patted the pup and got licked enthusiastically.  The problems at the counter did not get any less complex.  There was the woman trying to post a duvet that was too big to fit into the XL box produced from out the back.  There was the long cardboard tube sealed with what looked like an entire roll of brown tape that was improperly wrapped and bound to come to grief if posted like that.  There was a mysterious pile of perfectly ordinary letters that seemed to take forever to sort.  Then the man with the dog finally got to the counter, conducted his interminable business with the dog under one arm, and I was next ….

“D’accord”, announced  the man on the counter, courteously neglecting to groan at the sight of me.  Then a miracle happened.  He did not berate me for not using the machine (no one else seemed to be using it either); I did not forget what I needed to ask in French; he understood me; he gave me instructions (in French) and I understood them.  Voilà, c’est possible!

Naturally it was not all good news.  It cost me 25 Euros to post one tiny parcel, and I had to fill out two separate forms, one in triplicate and the other in quintuplicate, both containing identical and detailed information about what I was posting and why.  But once I had done that, and worked my way back to the counter with the forms, my parcel was safely on its way.  And not a word of English or even Franglais had been spoken.

It only took 40 minutes too!

So why did this rather frustrating experience leave me thinking fondly of the French.  Let me spell it out.

1. The dog was welcome in the Post Office.
2. People were amused rather than horrified and judgemental when the puppy had an accident.
3. The Post Office man took it in his stride and produced a bucket and mop without a word.
4. The dog’s owner cleaned it up without being asked.
5. The queue remained amiable against all odds.  No one raised their voices, no one scowled.  Instead they smiled and offered advice about making up parcels.
6. Comme ci, comme ça.

Today was not a red letter day.  But it was a pleasant enough day after all.

*  Before I came to France I took lessons at Alliance Français in Grey Lynn.  Our vocabulary extended to learning the nouns for both professions and fruit and vegetables.  For some reason my class-mates never got over their hilarity everytime I was forced to answer truthfully, “Je suis avocat”.  Yes, lawyer and avocado are the same word in French.  Funny ha – meh, it wears off.