an entry somewhere else

Yesterday I had a couple moments of ‘this is so absurd I can do nothing but laugh.’ The first was while visiting Carrefour, the French version of Walmart. I walked into the electronics department where they sold digital video recorders because I wanted a tripod. There were three sales associates standing together chatting. After not being helped I approached them and asked if they had any tripods for a digital video camera. Puzzled looks. I cranked up my linguistic abilities and pronounced ‘tripod’ as ‘treepod.’ I’ve heard someone use that pronunciation before. Still puzzled glances. I describe the use of a tripod. Nothing. They hurriedly converse and one runs off to get yet another associate. She asks me what I would like. I repeat my request. Blank stare. I point to the DVCs and then point to the other electronic kiosks that does have tripods for digital cameras. Something clicks and she runs off to ‘check’ on the stock. Nada. I had four people who are assigned to the electronics department and none could understand what I needed. I had my chuckle and went about my way.

I had a little trouble sleeping last night, so I was happy to fall asleep. I was awakened around 12.30a to terrible steel on steel banging. I kind of freaked out from a dead sleep, scrambling upstairs to have a look and pinpoint the noise. I wandered out front. It was a cement truck filling the second floor of one of the houses being built just down the street. I can’t say for sure why they did it at that hour, but they did block the whole road for about an hour. While I was awakened, the absurdity of a cement mixer coming past midnight in a quiet neighborhood and no one raising a stink about it reminds me I’m not in the US.