Lost in Paris

Friday night I took the redeye to Paris.

I thought I had everything covered. Got a seat next to the window so I could sleep up against the bulkhead, exit row for more legroom. 

“Sure, I’d be happy to assist in an emergency. Everyone follow me.” 

Carry-ons were in the overhead compartment instead of cramping my feet. Even had my super pillow with the wrap-around flap that won’t slip and fall on the floor during the night.

I thought things would be just fine.

"Chicken or Pasta?"

"Pasta."

 Not bad for airline food. Popped a sleeping pill with desert and settled in for a good night’s sleep on the six-hour plus flight to Paris. I didn’t expect perfection. The seat only reclined to 100 degrees while my body's a definite 180, and whenever I rolled the wrong way, the wallet in my back pocket felt like a rock under a sleeping bag. Around 2:00 AM, the nice woman in the next row finally stopped asking her husband for progress reports on the flight. All in all I got a few hours sleep before being woken up by the subtle breakfast bong and smell of hot coffee. 

Things would not be just fine.

Row 18, I was off the plan in a flash, through customs and met my driver, Narcis, who whisked me into Paris in record time. Got to my apartment at the northwest corner of Place Des Vosges. (You know, the place where the Queen, Catherine de Medici, lived until her husband Henri II got his eyes poked out in a jousting accident. Then she moved to the Louvre. Why she would want to live with all those tourists traipsing through her house, I'll never know.) 

They were still cleaning the apartment so I dropped off my luggage and walked around the neighborhood for a while. On my return, the owner, Thierry, gave me instructions on how to operate the TV, dishwasher, washing machine and coffee maker in French. He took his 700 euros and sped off on a motor scooter. If I can keep the Lessive Liquid separate from the Sucre Morceaux, I will have neither sweet underwear nor acrid coffee. 

Trouble comes when you least expect it. Sometimes it’s like termites—silently arriving and settling in without your knowledge. 

The lack of sleep was catching up on me. I thought briefly that I should have asked that irritating woman to shut her trap the first time she woke me. But right then, I had to focus. I needed food. I dragged myself out once more to get Euros at Banc Paribus, where my Bank of America ATM card works without fees. BP and BOA have some kind of reciprocal relationship that goes back years based on international banking and some embarrassing photographs concerning each of the CEOs on their visits abroad.  I carry my credit cards in my front pocket in a small case wrapped in elastic bands. My cousin once told me the rag merchants in Chelsea Massachusetts used to carry their money that way to foil pickpockets. Who knows if its true. My cousin’s a great kidder. Three hundred thirty six dollars got me 300 Euros. I guess the BOA photos were more damning than the BP ones.  Now to find groceries.

I saw people coming out of a small clothing/drug  store with bags of food stuff. I went in, looping the sweaters and toiletries several times before discovering a Monoprix grocery store, much like a Stop & Shop, in the basement. I loaded up my backpack (they don’t give you bags in the underground S&S) with staples: water, OJ, milk, butter, jam, coke and Speculoos cookies. Next I stopped at a boulangerie (bakery) getting a fresh ham and cheese sub (jambon et fromage sur une baguette, my best French words), and headed back to the apartment.  

In my exhaustion, my brain remembers only blurred images. Cursing the noisy pig who kept waking me up with her are-we-there-yet’s, I ate lunch, and climbed into the apartment's loft for a nap, barely removing my shoes and throwing my cargo dockers over the balcony rail. 

I’ve been over it a hundred times in my head, but that’s all of it, as best I can remember, before trouble rose out of the depths like a shopper at the Monoprix. 

When I awoke, I got unpacked and organized. Panic! I no longer had my wallet. 

Where could it be? On the plane? In Narcis’s car? Pickpockets in the Monoprix?  (Hey, "Pickpockets in the Monoprix," that could be the title of my next book. But my next book was supposed to be a technical one on complex systems engineering. Maybe "Network of Pickpockets in the Monoprix”?)  

Forget that. I should have put rubber bands on the wallet too. Why didn’t my cousin tell me that? If not with the Pickpockets at the Monoprix, (soon to be released), where else might the wallet be? In the loft? Under the furniture after falling from above? The next hours were spent in confusion, soul searching, prayer even, although the soul searching made the prospects of prayer grim. In the thirteenth century, when Paris was flooded, some bishop paraded through the streets carrying the relics of St Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, until the water receded. If it worked for him, might it work for me?

I moved my clothes in and out of the closet several times, searching to no avail. I emailed Narcis. He only speaks English through email. He responded, "No luck." I found an 800 number for American Airlines on the web. How do you dial an 800 number from Paris? Thank you, Steve Jobs, wherever you are, the iPhone figured it out without me. American Airlines gave me the number for security at Charles De Gaulle Airport. They gave me a recorded message in French without even a “press one for English.” If I had my hands around the neck of the bitch who had kept me tossing and turning all night, I would have strangled her.  

By then, it was dinner time. I craved clarity, understanding, a cheeseburger and fries. Pistachio gelato for desert. Back to the apartment. I agonized over my losses: my license, my medical insurance cards, library cards, a AAA card, a never touch $100 bill, my kids baby pictures, a Chatham Cafe frequent customer card with 8 out of 10 checks for a free sandwich, my frequent flyer numbers, the last of my business cards, gift cards for the Burlington cinemas & that expensive cafe I can't think of the name of because my brain is failing me and I’m sure it is terminal, not to mention the almost new wallet I bought in Florence only ten or fifteen short years ago.

My son said I should continue to write a blog of my adventures. I told him I was running out of things to talk about. Hrumph! Who knew? Trouble comes when you least expect it and worry wears you out. What was it Shakespeare said about exhaustion? "To sleep, perchance to dream …" And about losing your wallet?  "Wherefore art thou ...?"