French

Yes CJ, its story time with Gerry yet again.

“I’m French! Why do you think I have the outrageous accent!!!”
(John Cleese as the French Taunter, “Month Python and the Holy Grail”)

I am a coffee nut. I love my Second Cup. We buy our coffee beans from Second Cup. We have a very fancy coffee maker; water goes in here, new filter in the basket, coffee beans go in there, and when you press the start button, the beans are ground, funneled into the waiting filter basket, and let the brewing begin!

The smell of grinding beans for the coffee enthusiast is ambrosia to the nose. It really does start the experience off right. My wife Nita always says that first cup of coffee is the best, and starting it off with that wonderful bouquet has become a ritual in our kitchen.

Once when I was in Second Cup a few years ago picking up some coffee beans, there was a gentleman in front of me buying some cherry vanilla black tea. Actually, what I saw was “Thé noir au vanilla et cerise”. This being bilingual Canada, I was looking at the French side of the package.

I commented to the dude buying the tea that cherry vanilla black tea was a pretty specific taste. The young guy serving me looked at the package from my point of view and asked me how I knew it cherry vanilla black tea; I told him I was French. The guy buying the tea very deliberately looked me top to bottom, and said; “That’s funny, you don’t look French”.

I was somewhat puzzled; how does one look French? I was not wearing a beret; the last time I wore a beret, I was 12 and was an Army Cadet. At the time, my brother was dabbling in photography, and he’d set up his own darkroom in the basement. He took a few snap shots, and made his own black & white photos.

When my Dad, Bid Al, came home that day, he asked who had found pictures of him before he went overseas for the 2nd World War. My Mom has, among her great wall of memories, a collage of all of us when we graduated from high school, including herself, and one of Big Al when he joined the army in 1939. We were all about 16 in the photos, and you can tell we are all related. Depending on your viewpoint, it’s either eerie or quite cool.

But I digress. I was not wearing a Habs jacket, nor reading Le Journal de Montréal. I was not eating poutine, nor did I have a Mae West & Diet Pepsi. How could I look French? If there was a secret handshake, I would know it. If there was supposed to be a dress code, I would have known it as well. Neither Nita or I could figure it out.

The next day at work, I was regaling people with the story of the guy who said I looked French. There was general amusement all around. On the 3rd retelling, Maria was one of the group being entertained. Maria was a really good kid, but she was young and not quite worldly in her knowledge. Maria was a 1st generation Canadian; she spoke fluent Italian.

Previously, I was discussing with Pauline, who worked for me, her connection with Nita. They were both born in Nairobi, and I was relating to Pauline how Nita’s parents both still spoke Swahili, but Nita only spoke English, French, Hindi, Punjabi, and a little Spanish.

Maria came and asked me afterwards if she’d heard right when I said Nita was born in Nairobi. Once she confirmed that Nairobi is in Kenya and Africa, she asked if Nita spoke African. I asked her if she spoke European. When she looked at me like I was an idiot, I realized she wasn’t kidding. So I did what I always do in these situations; I explained to her, without being condescending, that there are a multitude of languages in Africa, as there are in Europe.

But back once again to the story at hand. When I finished my storytime in the lunchroom, and pondered how one looked French, Maria perked up and told that I did look French. ”What do you mean I look French? What does French look like? It’s not like I walk around with a baguette under my arm!” Wrong joke, because I had to explain what a baguette was to someone else listening in.

Maria then went on to explain to me that Italians are hairy, and since France is beside Italy, Frenchmen are also hairy. So since I was hairy, I could be either an Italian or a Frenchman, but for some reason which I can’t recall, I didn’t look like an Italian, so therefore, I looked like a Frenchman.

I looked around for Alan Funt again.

Salute!