Almost Parisian: How To Survive Your Late Twenties... In Paris

Chapter One.

Paris is perfect in spring. It’s warm, the sun is out, the French are out, sitting in cute cafés, drinking coffees in the morning, or wine in the afternoon. The city is brimming with tourists, some of them outrageously dressed up, thinking that Paris guillotines those not wearing Chanel bags and Armani suits, others back-packing with maps, standing confused in front of their hostels, and all of them utterly annoying for the locals who exasperate on every: “EXCUSE ME, MISS-YOU, WHICH WAY TO MONTMARTOR”, while Montmartre is just around the corner. Beautiful women, handsome men, tarts, cigarettes, shoes, souvenirs, gray, green, metal… Gorgeous.

Only it isn’t actually spring in Paris, it’s January 2nd, the streets are muddy with dirty snow, everyone is nervous for having to go back to work and the city tries to recover from its New Year’s Eve hangover, which was also what I was trying to do. Cocktails, as colorful and attractive as they are, should come with a warning label that says You will regret mixing spirits and sugar and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. Drinking had never been my favorite sport, actually, but this year, I decided to let myself loose a little, a decision which proved to be very painful the morning after. And the morning after that.

Also known as the morning of my gynecologist appointment.

I was sitting in the waiting room, sipping the tiny cup of espresso the doctor’s assistant gave me and tried to remember all the reasons why I love getting up early. There was nobody else there but the tiny woman at the reception desk, blinking in front of her computer, probably also trying to get used to the fact that she too, is up today and tons of paperwork and boring patientswith boring vaginas are waiting for her to check them in. When bored and with no one to talk to (which was a time I enjoyed) I wondered about random people’s dreams and desires and personal lives. Was the receptionist married? Did she like that job? Was she dreaming of becoming a restaurant owner? A stripper? Maybe she was a groupie for the Rolling Stones when she was younger. Was she a member of a book club? Was she into bondage?

At question number 16, which may have been as random as Did anyone upset her on New Year’s eve, my flow of thoughts was interrupted because the waiting room door opened and I saw a familiar face. It was a face with long hair and highlights, pretty, but not that much, nice body, but not that much, and answered to the name,

‘Mel?’

Mel raised her head to see who was calling. She had large sunglasses, of course God knows why, since the Sun only came out twelve minutes before, but I could still see she wasn’t happy to see me there. I guess there were other reasons why people made their doctor’s appointments so early in the morning, while Paris was getting ready for work. They didn’t like to be seen.

‘Oh, hi,’ Mel said in a voice clearly void of any excitement. ‘I can’t believe I see you, here, of all places.’ I could tell she immediately wished she had a different doctor.

‘But, I always meet friends here, it’s my favorite spot,’ I managed the first decent sentence since I woke up.

She didn’t seem to understand my otherwise lame joke. She sat next to me, took off her gloves and shoved them a bit violently in her leather purse. Mel liked to think that she was very much into fashion and always bought what Paris Fashion Week put on display, whether ridiculous or not. It was Mel who came to us with no eye-brows a few years ago, and tried to convince us that it’s the new thing. It gave me nightmares for a week.

Was Mel a fat child? I almost started another stream of questions in my head, when a door opened and the doctor called my name.

I went inside the office and greeted him with a smile. It was a badass doctor, about sixty years old, with bright, protruding eyes and a very sharp sense of humor. He was well aware of my broken French, which was probably an insult to his ears, so he was kind enough to speak to me in his charming French-English.

‘Any worries you need discussed?’

‘No.’

‘Any new partners?’

‘Not since the last one, no.’

‘So just the usual?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

People who don’t do small talks are wonderful.

As I was lying on the chair, I was thinking that it was actually pretty funny, to have ‘a usual’ here. Actually, pretty lucky to have a usual here, since I was only coming in for routine checks. My mildly boring love life hadn’t led to cervix conization.

And after he touched where no man reaches with hand (try as they might, though), and saw what no man sees for the second time, he said the most perfect words a woman of this century was going to hear on a gynecologist chair – Everything looks perfect – and sent me home.

I left the office (and also Mel who gave me a “please, just leave” smile) and went out to finally see the light of the day.

Surprisingly, there was not only daylight, but also sunlight, which was unexpected, but refreshing nevertheless. Having forgotten the second day hangover, the cold and the strong espresso from before, I went to a nearby café to officially begin the day. I had my vagina touched by a person I only see once a year after all, and I deserved something smothered in chocolate.

Maybe I should write a book about that woman at the reception desk? Would anyone read that? I wouldn’t.

This waiter probably wouldn’t either.

‘Hot chocolate, please, and all the whipped cream in the world.’