Sunday, June 14, 2015

Sometimes It Is Not Good To Speak French


We went on one of our favorite bike rides today, up up up to the Val d’Enfer.  We stopped at the top to enjoy the view across to Les Baux.

As we sat there, a couple of French ladies came by to do the same thing.  We said bonjour, but with our usual lousy French accents.  They must have figured that’s all the French we know.  Wrong-o! They proceeded to have a most interesting conversation.

The first lady started by saying it was too bad Jean-Michel wasn’t here, but his vertigo makes it hard to enjoy a view like this.  Plus there’s the problem with his feet.  Apparently, poor Jean-Michel has a vascular problem that occasionally makes his toes swell up and change color.  We got a vivid description of how downright nasty his toes could look.

We really didn’t need to know this.

Then the second lady talked about the rash she sometimes gets when she goes mushroom hunting.  And how much it itches.  And how her husband needs to rub cream into some rather, um, interesting places.

We were now deep into the Too Much Information zone.

I figured I would join in the fun by taking off my shirt and explaining how I got some of my rugged and manly scars.  But Val must have read my mind because she gave me that look, the one that means, “Don’t even think about it, buster.”

It’s funny, she didn’t say a thing in either French or English but I understood every word.


KVS

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