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Premieres Cotes De Bordeaux
First let me state that I am quite obviously not French. I don't even know the meaning of the above title. I copied it off a bottle. I am a Budweiser drinking American, an admission that carries with it the essence of the idea--the ugly American. But alas, we all must live as well as we can within the limitations of who we are.

You really can't blame the French for their famed snobbery. Americans have the same class attitudes. Its like we who shop at WalMart look down on those who shop at The Dollar Store. That was the Budweiser of analogies. What I mean is--besides nothing--is that you really can't blame French people for their well developed attitudes which may or may not be based on two thousand years of remarkable culture. They, like the rest of us, are doing the best they can. I think we Americans may be allowed to judge the French only after we have shopped at WalMart for two thousand years, and not before.

So my joke at work for the last month--and let me tell you the joke works (as well as lame jokes are allowed to work) because I have set it up with months and months of candor regarding my almost monk-like celibacy--has been that I am expecting a visit from a French girlfriend. And today I worked with some old mates I haven't been around for awhile so I hit them with a fresher version of the same joke like this--I said I spent all day yesterday with a French girlfriend. They said oo la la and I said--and her husband and two kids. To further debunk this very mild attempt at humor I tell that the girlfriend is really just a friend who happens to be a girl-woman (although I do admit to a rather serious fourth-grade crush) and she is not really French but an American married to a Frenchman (although she has lived outside of America--in Bordeaux and French Guiana and Northern Africa and Laos and back to Bordeaux--for more than half her life). So not only do I not have a sex life but my jokes don't have a sex life. Also I did not spend all day with the husband and kids. I only spent it with the friend, talking like there was no tomorrow. We did talk about sex though. In six hours of conversation how could you not talk about it?

I'm drinking the straight outta Bordeaux '98 Enclos De La Ronde, one of many wines not sold at WalMart. I'm happy with it.

- jimlouis 8-09-2002 12:44 am [link] [add a comment]