Merde (things could be worse)

1. Françoise doesn't let Tanya and me turn the hall light on after she goes to bed because the tiny sliver of light that peaks under her door when the light is on supposedly wakes her up at night. Never mind how much money we are paying to live here. I think I've paid for that hall light. The pitch black hallway took its toll this evening, when I smashed head first into the wall on my way to the living room, breaking my glasses and causing a few untypeable words to slip from my mouth. Merde.

2. Françoise has also forbid us from flushing the toilet after 11pm because it supposedly wakes up the entire apartment building. For a while, I heeded this rule, but I after the light incident, I'm kind of fed up with this ridiculousness. Leaving merde in the toilet overnight is just disgusting, and I refuse to do it any more. Sorry for the graphic reference, but it's the truth. Here's to flushing the john.

3. I sat across from a man on the metro on the way home. After about a minute, he moved to the seat directly next to me, because he thought there was merde on the seat next to him. I must admit, it did look like someone had left a nasty little present on the chair. Or it could have just been a melted Crunch bar. But I should have been suspicious of this dude. About three metro stops later, he was asking me if French was my native language, and before I knew it, he had handed me his business card and asked for my number so that we could "practice French" with each other some time. Naw, brotha. I politely declined to give him my digits and rushed off the train. Another interesting tidbit: his profession read "hypnotiseur." Huh?

4. I also managed to leave my work papers on a chair in the mediocre crêpe restaurant where I had dinner.

I suppose there are worse things that could arrive, as the French say. At least I haven't yet stepped in merde.