Merde!

To those of you who don’t speak French, congratulations: having read the title of this post, you now know at least how to swear in the language of Baudelaire. The "m-word," as those of you who do speak the language know, is the French equivalent of the "s-word" in English. Ashley and I don’t know much French yet, so the latter mot is still our go-to in times of need. Though as Ashley has noted, "the f-word" can also come in quite handy at times.

However, I want to talk here not about the "m" the word, but about "m" the stuff. For one of the important adjustments we've had to make here is to the constant hazard of dog poop on the sidewalk. "Curbing" your dog (as signs in the States entreat dog-owners to do), or pooper-scooping or using a plastic bag to clean up after him or her, is one of those practices that, like the use of deodorant or the donning of rubber gloves by butchers, one might simply assume is standard in big cities the world over. That is, until one catches a whiff of a fellow passenger on the Metro, or sees the man behind the counter, having just wrapped up monsieur's foie with his bare hands, quickly wipe them on his apron and fetch madame’s bœuf. Or until one quite literally steps in it.

When I lived in Brooklyn, I once witnessed the public excoriation of a man who didn't clean up after his dog. The man steadfastly refused, dismissing the outrage that quickly swept through the surrounding throng with a waive of his arm, and continued on his way. But his defiance seemed like a defense-mechanism -- an attempt to counteract the scorn and social shame he felt. He knew that what he did was, within the strictures of the Park Slope moral code, wrong. Perhaps he had simply forgotten to stuff a plastic CVS bag into his coat pocket as he walked out the door (and if so, he probably muttered the s-word under his breath when he realized that he had). Rather than go back and get one, perhaps he hoped that no one would notice if, just this once, he didn’t scoop the poop. Alas, it was a Saturday afternoon, and Fido chose the sidewalk in front of a bustling bagelry as the place to go about his business, and the man was done for.


In Paris, there are no such worries. As one’s dog does its thing, one can window-shop, scan the headlines at the nearby newsstand or, like one’s dog itself, simply stare un-self-consciously off into the distance until the task is complete. Alas, for everyone else on the sidewalk, there's a need for constant vigilance. This is difficult for newcomers like us, because we're already multi-tasking as we walk -- checking our map, people-watching, scanning doors for the right address or gazing across the Seine as the lights of the Eiffel Tower sparkle like a glass of champagne. Nothing ends the transcendence of a moment like that more quickly than squishing into a pile of poo. From the sublime to the ridiculous truly is but a step.

-- MBB