french girl fail

So the weather is slowly, but surely, getting better. We've had only 2 days of rain, and 1 of snow in the two weeks that I've been back from the February holiday, and even though it's been freezing, there has been lots of sunshine, so it's a nice trade-off. The last few days have been a bit warmer, and according to le Météo (weather), spring should arrive on Friday, just in time for the first day of spring, which is Saturday, when I'll be in Paris!!!! I can't think of a more perfect day to be in my most favorite city. I've got some shopping/museum seeing that I want to do, and I've been waiting on better weather to go. Anyhoo, the point of all this is to say that I have found a new favorite café in Metz and since the weather has been somewhat warmer (45-50 degrees), I've been sitting outside -- one of my most favorite things to do. No worries, they have heaters, and with a nice pot of tea and a heater and a good book, it makes for a very nice afternoon.

So yesterday, I went into Metz to see a movie, and got there early so that I could take a cup of tea and read a little at my café, which is located near the movie theater. I was very lucky to get a table that was located just under the heater, and somehow miraculously not near any smokers. I ordered a lovely pot of tea, and got out my book and was heavily into it when I just happened to look up. I noticed a group of French adolescent girls, they couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen, and at first I noticed how I liked what they were wearing (first thing I notice about French girls). Then, I noticed how, like adolescent girl groups in the US, they were basically attached to each other and couldn't move without doing it collectively. So they all got up, and the "Queen Bee" had to go inside to the bathroom or something, and the rest stood outside in front waiting on her. They were basically eating their cigarettes, which I thought was too bad because they were all so young and pretty, it just kills me when I see the young ones smoking, but that is neither here nor there. Anyways, I noticed one girl, loved what she was wearing, and noticed that she cute in an adolescent way, definitely would be a heartbreaker when she was older, but she was absolutely eating her cigarette. All the girls decided to go inside, but she was the last one with a cigarette. And like I said above, this group, in typical adolescent fashion, was doing everything as a collective group. So I could just see the uncomfortable-ness on her face when she was left outside with her cigarette -- like a fish out of water or something. So I watched her take a final drag and then look around, eyes falling on a table to the right of the door, with a man and woman seated at it. Then, she took the cigarette and reached between the man and woman, who were in the middle of a very serious-looking conversation, and put it out in the ashtray on their table. Both the man and the woman looked at her like she was absolutely utterly insane, and she just gave them that nonchalant French girl smirk and shrugged her shoulders and walked inside. The man then proceeded to let out a string of curse words, and the woman waved her hand in front of her face -- obviously the only other non-smokers besides me in the entire centre ville area. He then proceeded to cover the ashtray with a menu and the two of them proceeded to get really annoyed and talk about how "impolite" and "inconsiderate" the little girl was. A minute later, the entire girl-group walks out together, all with the smirk, and I saw the girl pass the table and notice the menu covering the ashtray, as well as the angry looks on the faces of the man and woman. I could just picture her seeing a beautiful model or French girl in a movie or tv show or something doing the same thing and completely getting away with it because of her beauty and charms and savoir-faire and the girl thinking it was the epitome of cool, and then trying to pull it off in real life, resulting in a massive F-A-I-L.

Lesson from this story: Just because you're French doesn't mean you can't fail.