toilets

Les Bronzés font du ski

Posted on by MELewis

Les Bronzés font du ski is one of those cult classic films that define popular culture in France. Released in 1979, it was one of a series of ‘Les Bronzés’ movies by Patrice Leconte, a parody of the singles holiday that featured early performances from an all-star lineup of comic actors: Josiane Balasko, Michel Blanc, Christian Clavier, Gérard Jugnot, Thierry Lhermite.

I remember not really getting the film the first time I saw it: neither the slapstick, heavy-handed humor the French seem to love, nor the lightning-fast repartee. But I came to appreciate that the film defined an era – as did yours truly last time I hit the slopes.

March is a good time for skiing in the French Alps. There are fewer tourists, for one thing, as most of the school breaks are over and the Parisians have gone home.

This winter hasn’t been great for snow – seems the weather gods decided to dump it all on North America this year. So we decided on some early spring skiing last weekend while the skies were blue and the snow still fairly plentiful.

My husband was feeling ‘en manque de montagne’ as he hadn’t been skiing for several weeks – he needed a fix of thinner air. I happily dusted off my old skis and boots that had miraculously turned up after our last move. I’m not an easy fit in a ski boot so I was delighted to rediscover my comfy old Nordicas and not have to rent for once.

We went to our closest resort, Avoriaz. It was a Saturday, a good choice if you want to avoid the crowds. Most people are arriving or departing on that day and so there are fewer skiers on the slopes.

As usual, we’d no sooner geared up than I needed to hit the ladies. Hubby went to buy the ski passes while I went in search of les toilettes. Things must be improving around here: I found clean, functioning facilities right by the pistes. When I returned a few minutes later, an ESF ski instructor was holding up one of my skis and examining it.

“Ahem, those are mine,” I ventured, thinking he’d mistaken my skis for his own.

“Ah!” he sighed, setting them down. “I so regret getting rid of my old ones.”

“Why, because they don’t make ‘em like these any more?”

“Because they were such a great souvenir. Those were the days!”

Right. I hadn’t realized until then that my skis, pointy tipped and perhaps 20 years old, were  considered a relic of bygone days.  I was starting to feel like a fossil myself.

Hubby came up and chuckled along with the fellow, which I thought was pretty mean considering he was sporting brand new equipment. To be fair, he uses it enough to amortize the investment.

Then, as we were about to get on les oeufs (as the French called the Gondola lifts), one of operators noticed my skis and said: “Ha, those are a real collectors’ item!” He went on to advise me not to leave them by the bar too long, or they’d get nicked for sure.

How did he know I’d be at the bar?

But it’s decided:  I’m getting new skis next year.

Beware the Sanisette

Posted on by MELewis

La SanisetteMy mother always told me to beware of public toilets. I was never quite sure what I was supposed to be wary of – bad smells, germs, lurking perverts?

Still, her warnings left me with a vague sense of discomfort that continued to haunt me as an adult every time I used a public washroom (‘washroom’ being the preferred euphemism of Canadians for toilets – aka loo, bathroom, lavatory, WC, etc).

Until I moved to France and discovered la Sanisette. When that vague discomfort was transformed into an outright fear of public toilets.

The Sanisette was originally designed to replace the public ‘pissoirs’ or urinals in the streets of Paris. They’re the French answer to clean, modern and readily available sanitation in public places. Its success has been limited, as anyone who has ever taken the Paris metro can attest – pretty well every nook and cranny still smells like a pissoir.

Sad to say, access to such facilities is often restricted so as to discourage the homeless from setting up housekeeping. Although they decided to make the Sanisettes free of charge (they used to cost 1 French franc or 40 euro cents), they have a 15-minute limit so as to prevent illicit activity like drug deals, prostitution and overnight stays.

These self-contained, self-cleaning structures are situated on busy street corners and city squares, so your private moment still feels a little public. They’re also unisex – not unusual in the old world where a single ‘cabinet des toilettes’ (water closet) often serves as both the men’s and ladies’.

The real problem I have with the Sanisette is the fact that you are forced to rely upon technology to keep your private business private. It is a nightmare for the excessively modest, the claustrophobic and the phobic in general (in my case, all three).

Here is how it’s supposed to work. You press the button and the doors open. You enter and the doors automatically shut. You do your business, wash your hands and press on the button to open the doors. You exit, the doors close and the unit begins a self-cleaning cycle, during which it is temporarily ‘hors service’ until clean and ready for the next user.

At least in theory. My fears are:

  1. The doors will randomly open at an inopportune moment, revealing me in extremis to a crowd of bystanders
  2. The doors will not open when they’re supposed to, and I will go through the complete wash and rinse cycle (possibly drowning amidst my own filth)
  3. The doors will not open at all, and I will be forever fossilized in a Sanisette

Think I’m paranoid? Shit happens.

Check this out:

To be fair, there are over 400 Sanisettes in Paris and most of them work just fine. I’m sure the tourists are grateful to find a functioning toilet when lining up to see the Eiffel Tower. There’s even an app for that.

But you won’t catch me in one.

Gender benders

Posted on by MELewis

shutterstock_98661947I have spent many hours since coming to this wondrous land pondering existential questions around points of grammar.  For example, why is a toilet feminine? And more importantly, why do the French only refer to toilets in the plural (‘les toilettes’), when they are so often to be found only in the singular?

In a language where he and she are not just people and animals but objects and places, the concept of gender goes way beyond our traditional idea of male and female.

Learning to speak proper French, with its complex rules of grammar, is challenging for anyone. It’s especially so for we English speakers for whom the concept of gender assignment to nouns is utterly foreign.

Why should a shoe (une chaussure) be feminine? Men wear them too (although most own fewer pairs). While we’re at it, why should the most defining parts of the female anatomy be masculine? (le sein, le vagin…)

Rule number one is that there is no rule. Don’t waste time and energy looking for logical associations that help explain why it’s la chaise and le fauteil. There aren’t any. Or they’re too deeply buried in the etymology and history of the language to be helpful.

There’s only way to master gender in language. Forget it.

The day I decided to stop worrying about gender and concentrate on other aspects of the language – vocabulary, syntax, not to mention non-verbal communications –  I took my first step towards fluency.

Sure you make mistakes. They are unavoidable. As soon as you say ‘le chose’ you are instantly and forever branded as a non-native speaker. It’s a dead giveaway. It’s also no big deal. Unless you’re a CIA agent trying to pass as French-born.

Fortunately there are only two genders in French – unlike German, which also has the neutral form. So you have a 50/50 chance of getting it right. But even if you get the article right, you may get stuck on the respective masculine, feminine or plural version of the adjective.

There are just so many traps laying in wait. So just sail on, and damn the mistakes.

By the way, if you’re looking for les toilettes, which are always feminine and plural, you can also ask for les WC (pronounced: vay-say). Bonne chance!