La vie est chère

I was standing on the sidewalk reading a book while waiting for someone when a middle aged man appeared in front me saying that life is expensive. I pretended not to understand French so he repeated the phrase in English. For a brief moment I considered pretending that I didn’t understand English either, but since I was holding a book in English I figured that wouldn’t work.

The man continued babbling about life being more expensive these days, his lack of hair and how great it is that Obama is President while I started backing up to get out of spittle-flying range. Then, out the blue, he told me that he wanted to have coffee with me. I said no and his response was “I don’t want to make love; I just want to buy you a coffee.” I told him I couldn’t because I was waiting for someone. He said “You’re busy” then walked off while telling me that I would learn French. This is definitely one of my oddest Parisian encounters…