Il Me Reste Un Espoir Mais Tu Ne Te Retournes Pas

[Disclaimer: I love Paris. I want to live there. Keep that in mind.]

Happy Bastille Day! I’m not exactly sure what is entailed in proper Bastille Day celebrations, aside from storming prisons and stealing guns. I don’t really have any interest in either of those activities, so I think maybe I’ll just watch coverage of the Tour de France.

I’ve been to France twice in my short life, both during the summer, and both under the guise of “advancing my career.” The first time I went to work on a movie. I highly recommend it. It was my first job after college, and the only one I ever landed based on my undergrad degree. I was 22 years old, unattached, and I had just started drinking the year before. My first drink was the night of November 7th, 2000. It was a significant date. Not significant to these stories, however.

So I’m in Paris. I have some good times. I have some bad times. I learn to hate the Eiffel Tower. I add to the image of the Ugly American. I feel bad about it.

For instance, there is some holiday commemorating... something, on August... something or other. I don’t know. But regardless, there were lots of people not at work, and I think they all decided to come to the Eiffel Tower. It was also the day we were scheduled to shoot on the top of that fucker.

Being the low man on the totem pole, I landed the unenviable task of standing in line to buy elevator tickets to take the SONY HD camera up to the observation deck. Did I mention it was August? It sucked. It was hot. It was crowded. It lasted all day.

By the end of the shoot I was absolutely sick of Paris, Parisians, and their stupid fucking tower. I resolved to take out my frustration on the next Parisians I saw.

As it happened, it was two cops.

I was walking with the script supervisor, who wore a NASCAR cap and shirt during every day of the shoot. Every. Day. This man was embarrassed about nothing. As we walked away from the tower, I said to him, “I’m going to fuck with these cops.”

He chuckled as we ascended the steps of the National Museum, and looked at me as if to say, “funny idea, but no you’re not.”

Now, if you’ve never been to Paris, you should know that the National Museum is separated from the Eiffel Tower by a long verdant park, sort of like a really beautiful version of the South Oval at the University of Oklahoma. What’s important to know is that the steps of the National Museum, where I was standing, have perhaps the least obstructed and most complete view of the Eiffel Tower in all of Paris.

As the cops are walking past us, I stop them with a “Pahr-dough-nay-moaw” delivered in my most redneck accent.

They pause and wait for me to continue.

“I was wonderin’ if you could tell me, where’s the Eiffel Tower?”

They look at each other, they look at me, they look at the tower, back at each other, then at me.

I sense confusion. “Oh, Ah’m sorry. Oooo-eh le Tour Ee-fell?”

One of them points at the tower. “It’s right there, Monsieur.”

I look at it. “Oh,” I say. “I thought it was taller.”

They stare at me.

“How tall is that,” I ask them. They begin to say something about meters when I interrupt them with “how tall is that in feet? How many pounds does that thing weigh?”

They realize I am full of shit at this point, and walk away.

I catch up with the script supervisor, who is, for perhaps the first time in his life, embarrassed by the behavior of someone else. I feel a perverse sense of accomplishment.

After all, it is a rare act that is both embarrassing to a redneck and rude to the French.