I HAD TOO MUCH TO DREAM LAST NIGHT (FRENCH CAR WASH EDITION)
I am in France for a conference or movie festival, or maybe both.
For some reason I packed one less shirt than I needed. A PR guy/journalist offers me use of his extra shirt. “Just come find me when you need it,” he says. But later, when I need it, he can’t give it up because “news broke two hours ago” and now he’s too busy and will be staying longer than he thought.
The next morning, I leave my hotel and head back to the conference hall. I take a wrong turn through a car wash that I mistake for an alley. The attendant assumes I’m lost and tries to give me directions, but in French - he doesn’t speak English. He point to the Lumiere, a famous dept store in a shopping area that specializes in football (i.e. soccer) equipment, sports clothing, fan merchandise, etc. We can see it in the distance through the cityscape. Apart from the fact that I’m not interested in football, it’s also nowhere near where I want to go.
I make my excuses and try to leave, but he offers to give me a ride. I’m running late so I accept. However, he drives the car onto a sort of monorail track and I realize he’s taking me to the Lumiere. I get him to stop the car, and try to explain where I want to go, but I can’t remember how to say the name in French, and I can’t find the conference brochure in my bag.
He drives back to the car wash, and gives me the car so I can drive myself. But he and his friend insist on washing it first, and they put it through some elaborate Rube Goldberg washing procedure, after which it’s filled with empty plastic bags bags, and the steering wheel is wrapped in feather boas that make it almost impossible to steer. I try to get them to fix it, and they keep telling me I have to wait, and it was my idea to have the car washed in the first place, and what do I have against football, etc.
It’s around this point I realize they’re deliberately fucking with me. I get angry, and tell them this is not a cool way to act. “It’s because of guys like you that Americans think France sucks.”
They shrug and say, “Who cares what Americans think when you think you can invade whoever you want and spy on everyone?”
“I don’t support any of those things either, so why take it out on me?” I argue.
Realizing I have no stake in winning this argument, I take the car and try to remove all the feather boas so I can drive it. By the time I clear off the wheel, a drunk prostitute gets in the passenger seat and demands that I drive her to an adoption agency. Assuming the car-wash attendants put her up to this, I ignore her and start driving to the conference hall. I try to use the freeway to save time, but it is full of twists and loops, and the prostitute keeps getting me to take the wrong lane. “The adoption agency is THIS way!”
The scene soon morphs into a surreal Flight Of The Conchords music video (except the music is actually “Sacrilege” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs) where the freeway becomes a rollercoaster, and my car turns into a moon capsule. I manage to get rid of the woman by lowering her down on a ladder and then leveraging the near-zero gravity of the moon to fling her away onto the lunar surface.
Scene shift: It turns out I am watching all this in the movie hall of the conference I am attending, so apparently I made it somehow.
As the movie plays, a squad of cops in brown jumpsuits enters the theatre and start asking everyone to show their hands - they want to see if any of us are holding money in our hands. I gather there’s been a robbery nearby. I show my hands, and they move on.
A group of Japanese students a few rows down in front of me grab a guy in their row and haul him out into the aisle - evidently he’s the bank robber, and he was hiding in the theatre. The cops surround him and start beating him with sticks. As the cops whack him, the audience gets their cameras out to take pictures. I’m not interested, but I’ve noticed that they’ve paused the film so that we don’t miss the ending.
And then I woke up.
DISCLAIMER: I’ve been to France about a dozen times, and I’ve never had a bad experience with locals.
Sacre bleu,
This is dF
This entry was originally posted at http://defrog.dreamwidth.org/1444788.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
For some reason I packed one less shirt than I needed. A PR guy/journalist offers me use of his extra shirt. “Just come find me when you need it,” he says. But later, when I need it, he can’t give it up because “news broke two hours ago” and now he’s too busy and will be staying longer than he thought.
The next morning, I leave my hotel and head back to the conference hall. I take a wrong turn through a car wash that I mistake for an alley. The attendant assumes I’m lost and tries to give me directions, but in French - he doesn’t speak English. He point to the Lumiere, a famous dept store in a shopping area that specializes in football (i.e. soccer) equipment, sports clothing, fan merchandise, etc. We can see it in the distance through the cityscape. Apart from the fact that I’m not interested in football, it’s also nowhere near where I want to go.
I make my excuses and try to leave, but he offers to give me a ride. I’m running late so I accept. However, he drives the car onto a sort of monorail track and I realize he’s taking me to the Lumiere. I get him to stop the car, and try to explain where I want to go, but I can’t remember how to say the name in French, and I can’t find the conference brochure in my bag.
He drives back to the car wash, and gives me the car so I can drive myself. But he and his friend insist on washing it first, and they put it through some elaborate Rube Goldberg washing procedure, after which it’s filled with empty plastic bags bags, and the steering wheel is wrapped in feather boas that make it almost impossible to steer. I try to get them to fix it, and they keep telling me I have to wait, and it was my idea to have the car washed in the first place, and what do I have against football, etc.
It’s around this point I realize they’re deliberately fucking with me. I get angry, and tell them this is not a cool way to act. “It’s because of guys like you that Americans think France sucks.”
They shrug and say, “Who cares what Americans think when you think you can invade whoever you want and spy on everyone?”
“I don’t support any of those things either, so why take it out on me?” I argue.
Realizing I have no stake in winning this argument, I take the car and try to remove all the feather boas so I can drive it. By the time I clear off the wheel, a drunk prostitute gets in the passenger seat and demands that I drive her to an adoption agency. Assuming the car-wash attendants put her up to this, I ignore her and start driving to the conference hall. I try to use the freeway to save time, but it is full of twists and loops, and the prostitute keeps getting me to take the wrong lane. “The adoption agency is THIS way!”
The scene soon morphs into a surreal Flight Of The Conchords music video (except the music is actually “Sacrilege” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs) where the freeway becomes a rollercoaster, and my car turns into a moon capsule. I manage to get rid of the woman by lowering her down on a ladder and then leveraging the near-zero gravity of the moon to fling her away onto the lunar surface.
Scene shift: It turns out I am watching all this in the movie hall of the conference I am attending, so apparently I made it somehow.
As the movie plays, a squad of cops in brown jumpsuits enters the theatre and start asking everyone to show their hands - they want to see if any of us are holding money in our hands. I gather there’s been a robbery nearby. I show my hands, and they move on.
A group of Japanese students a few rows down in front of me grab a guy in their row and haul him out into the aisle - evidently he’s the bank robber, and he was hiding in the theatre. The cops surround him and start beating him with sticks. As the cops whack him, the audience gets their cameras out to take pictures. I’m not interested, but I’ve noticed that they’ve paused the film so that we don’t miss the ending.
And then I woke up.
DISCLAIMER: I’ve been to France about a dozen times, and I’ve never had a bad experience with locals.
Sacre bleu,
This is dF
This entry was originally posted at http://defrog.dreamwidth.org/1444788.html. Please comment there using OpenID.