More Monoprix

sterday, for the first time ever in history, the Monoprix opened the "10 items or less" line during the lunchhour.

But the scale for weighing fruits and vegetables had never worked since the store first opened was out of order, so up went a sign: "Fruit and vegetable scale broken" with the implied message that should you have any food of that nature (which most lunch-buyers would, this being France where people don't eat Twinkies and Coke for the midday meal, ahem), you couldn't use that register.

What irritated me most about this (besides the obvious)? The sign wasn't just something a Monoprix "worker" scribbled on a piece of cardboard. No! The sign was a professionally-printed, plastified structure, totally aligned with the color scheme and cheerful font Monoprix uses all over their stores. ( Their motto, for example: "Qu'est-ce qu'on peut faire pour vous aujourd'hui?" or, "What can we do to annoy you with today?")

In other words, they know the scale doesn't work. They know the scale has never worked. They know they have NO INTENTION OF EVER FIXING THE SCALE...and so, the need for a permanent, nicely-made sign.

This brings to mind another Stupid Thing I've Seen At The Monoprix. A couple of years ago they remodelled this Monoprix and tried to make it sexy. They were obligated by French building codes to install an elevator, as the store is on two levels. (I will save for another post how insanely-allocated the different products are on these two levels, but here is a teaser: you can buy razors on the bottom level, but you must go to the next level to buy shaving cream. Believe me when I tell you that this strategy is not to get you to move throughout the store and therefore buy more-impulsively--for that is not the economic mindset of the French-- this strategy is done deliberately to drive me mad.)

Anyway, the day they started constructing that elevator I said to my colleague and fellow-Monoprix-hater Melissa, "That will NEVER function. They'll put in in, but they will NEVER maintain it. Some shopper will get stuck in there for life with their trolley full of frozen food, and they will never get her out."

And that is exactly what has come to pass. Well, sort of. Monoprix never even got to the "working capacity" part of the elevator. They built it, they let the building inspectors sign off on it, and then they turned the whole glass structure into a storage unit. Everytime Melissa and I walk by all those boxes of catfood and Pampers stocked inside the inert lift, we just laugh and laugh. Before we cry, of course.

The Monoprix elevator: providing an extra stockroom since 2008

Expat writers, threesomes and Cultural Identity

reader thoughtfully pointed me towards this important piece of sleuth reporting for which I thank her.

I had mentioned on my Facebook page that I was set to implode should I read another review of Pamela Druckerman's newest fluff piece on the supposed superiority of French parenting. While she didn't write about Why French Women Don't Get Fat (that subject belongs to Mireille Guiliano), Druckerman's latest is built around a similar conceit: Everything We Do In France We Do Better Than You In The U.S.A.  And, according to the link, We Even Do Threesomes Better Than You.

Do you not just LOVE how Druckerman, in an attempt to be taken as a "serious writer" got Marie Claire to take down the link to the article? I certainly do.

Following the release of Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, this is prime time for these sorts of pieces to appear; the romance of life in Paris has always been a favorite for publishers (and dreamers). That said, Real Paris is far from being the perfectly-coiffed city that these women depict. The sterotypes presented in most expat stories are reflections of their own privledged lives and the lives of the white, wealthy partners they married and settled down with in France. It is easy, or easier, to raise a well-mannered child when he grows up among the navy-blue wearing citizens of Paris' posh 16th-arrondissement. Maman can spend her days Not Getting Fat at the health spa while the nanny educates the child Not To Throw Food.

This genre of low-brow literature annoys me because it ignores the elephant in the room. Should any of these writers venture out of the wealthy arrondissements, or Provence as is the case for two of these women, they would see another face of France, a face which is very different in color and culture, but equally French. Take the RER out to the "93", home to the highest rate of criminal deliquancy in the Paris area, and you will also see French parents. But their method of parenting wouldn't make for a compelling article in Elle, would it, with those French parents ripping out the hardwood flooring the government has installed in their housing project to turn around and sell it at the flea market. Those French parents do not educate their children not to throw food; throwing food would be the last transgression those French parents would have to worry about. Foremost on their minds? Getting the drug dealers who squat their landing to go make their deals in another hallway of the cité.

Bringing Up Bebe:  Just not in Seine St Denis

There is one voice of balanced sanity in this cohort. Beth Epstein just came out with an excellent study of

French Cultural Identity called Collective Terms: Race, Culture, and Community in a State-Planned City in France. Of course that title isn't sexy enough to get her a headline in Marie Claire but at least she'll never have to ask them to take the story down.

hile buying the breakfast bread at the boulangerie last weekend, my eyes were drawn to the cake case. There was a small individual tarte au chocolat, as there would be (for it was Sunday, the day that the French eat treats after mass/lunch). What struck me was the careful detail on the tarte; the surface had not only little scrolls of white icing, but it also featured a small flat chocolate disk upon which was printed part of a piece of sheet music, in edible gold. It was delicate and beautiful.

This is why I love living in France. This attention to detail in places one doesn't always expect--or miss, really, if it weren't there. (I'd still buy a tarte au chocolat even if it came without a musical score.) The buildings with their larger-than-life caryatids and finely-finished facades; the lavendar water the maid fills the iron with when she presses the bed linens; the knife rests and the napkin rings you still see as a normal part of a table setting...all this attention to beauty, so pleasing to the eye (and the nose), the effort made to evoke pleasure through the visual and the visceral.

was again reminded of how much I hate Monoprix when a trip to that store took me a total of 2.5 hours. That's right---two and a half hours just to grocery shop! That's crazy even for a Saturday. First I had to wait a billion hours just to get into their stupidly-constructed and poorly-lit parking lot, then wait for some jackass to liberate a parking space, then once in the store deal with all the forklifts and drivers stocking the shelves at PEAK SHOPPING HOUR (as usual) and lastly, once my blood pressure was sky-high...for some reason known ONLY TO MONOPRIX, they shut down all but two registers (must have been union-mandated breaktime for all) and we waited 45 minutes in line. People were yelling; it was ugly.

I'd tell you how I was blocked from putting my groceries in the trunk of my car by another jackass who decided to park up against my trunk...but I'd rather tell you this other really funny/pathetic Monoprix-related tale.

A couple of weeks ago I had a bad case of food poisoning. I didn't think much of it until I got a call from Monoprix, who, thanks to my let's spy on you and track your purchases Monoprix "I'm in your wonderful Club" card, knew that I was one of the lucky consumers of TAINTED MEAT that Monoprix had sold the previous week. Mr. Monoprix left me a charming message, informing me that I should take the TAINTED MEAT back to the store for a full refund. Yeah, thanks Mr Monoprix, but I've already barfed up all your TAINTED MEAT. To add insult to injury (the phone call was way too late for anyone to still have that TAINTED MEAT in their fridge; Monoprix knew very well they wouldn't go bankrupt refunding many customers), Mr Monoprix gave me the number of the "Monoprix Medical Hotline", a number, Mr Monoprix underscored with great insistance, which, when dialed, would not cost me anything. The equivalent of an 800 number in the USA. Unfortunately, when I dialed the "Monoprix Medical Hotline", I reached a recorded message, referring me to another number...one that would cost me 21 centimes per minute should I be foolish enough to dial it. (To be honest, I was really curious to see what kind of medical resources Monoprix was offering. But not curious enough to pay for it.) Good old "How Can We Annoy You Today?" Monoprix. First they poison me, then they try and make me pay for it.

Starbucks, continued

Starbucks franchise opened across the street from where we live. I saw the green sign go up but didn't think much about it; I am used to going to the café which is situated closer to my flat. While it isn't the most elegant of cafés--indeed, it's got a real 70's architecture thing going on--they know me there and it's also a tabac so I can pick up gum or a card for the parking meter at the same time I down an espresso.

When Starbucks opened their flagship shop at the Opéra in 2002, I made a decision that I would never spend a euro in their place. Another example of American Imperialism! Who wants to drink coffee in a paper container? And the prices! More and more Starbucks shingles began appearing in Paris and I stubbornly maintained my stance.

But a couple of weeks ago I stepped into this new Starbucks. Amélie and her friends use it as a place to study after class and I wanted to check it out. What a pleasant shop! Instead of the tightly-packed tables of my downstairs place, Starbucks had these comfortable easy chairs, all spread out like in a living room. Everything was clean and the paint job was very tasteful; no mirrors with beer ads on them or big screen TV on the walls.

I've been back several times since, which makes me wonder if I'm cheating myself out of the European experience. I mean it is total Americana in this place--they even have carrot cake and low-fat muffins. (The latter an oxymoron.) Of course the service is still French; they can never get my order correct and it takes them hours to make my skim milk decaf latté, but if you can get past the personnel, you could pretend you are in Marin County (except that I haven't double-parked my giant SUV outside the door of the place and I never go in wearing lycra running shorts). While it will never replace the café experience--Starbucks is too sanitized to feel European--I have the feeling that I'll be crossing the street again tomorrow for our hit of Americana. And rather than feel guilty, I'll just tell myself that it is all part of keeping my children's alter-culture topped up.

Monoprix: It LOOKS like a supermarket, but doesn't act like one

s I waited in the long lunchtime line in the Monoprix today, my eyes fell upon a sign tacked to the side of the register. It informed us that Monoprix, in an effort to provide "even better customer service" was surveying departing shoppers and would we please take a moment to respond to the nice clipboard-holding women at the exit doors?

There were a million things I wanted to tell these ladies, including but not limited to:

-why not open more than two cash registers during peak hours?
-why not be proactive and offer plastic bags rather than wait until the customer asks for one, when CLEARLY the customer is holding only her purse and has not brought a more planet-friendly carrying device?
-why not stock aisles and shelves during off-hours so shoppers can move thru the aisle with a shopping cart?
-why not place razor blades and shaving cream on the SAME level, rather than one downstairs and one upstairs?
-and, while we are on the subject of levels, WHY NOT REPAIR YOUR FAKE ELEVATOR WHICH HAS NOT FUNCTIONED SINCE 2007, instead of using it as an extra stock room, holding Mentos boxes and expired Christmas sweets? That way, people with strollers would not cause accidents and put their babies at risk while attempting to take the escalators.

Oh, I had a lot of time in the line to come up with some fine suggestions on how to run a better business. But of course, when I got to the exit...


...there were no survey takers. Guess their union decided that they'd worked enough.

Snow in Paris

id you know that the city of Paris has a de-snowing schedule?

Obviously my street is not prioritized.