France Once Again: Chapter 9ine: When Money is Not Money

When Money is Not Money

The euro coins on the right - "cents" just like the heavy metal parts of our dollar - amount to half a euro, umm, fifty cents. With the current exchange rate for Canadian currency, that'd be a few dollars. Just kidding.

By the way, did it ever occur to anyone that the only thing metric about America is the dollar?

Anyway, the French did away with public pissoirs decades ago, mostly because of the offensive odours on the Paris streets during the heyday years of escargot and garlic eaters. But France is to be congratulated on not abandoning the need.

Fifty cents is the usual price to pay at a manned public toilet, sometimes womanned, and that covers the cost of cleaning. Well worth the small price.

The only personal conflict I have had in France was at the public Toilette at Cours Saleya in Nice, last week. I said to the lady -Joanne - who carries the change purse, mostly for the highway tolls, that I would like to take all the small copper coins to pay the toilet guy. And I did. The same coins in the picture, above. Exactly the same coins.

When I placed them on the counter, the man said, "Non."

I said, "Pourquoi pas?" (why not?)

"Non."

"Ce n'est pas de l'argent?" (this isn't money?) I asked.

"Non."

I was perplexed, and engaged him with my troublesome French.

"So what am I supposed to do with these? Prenez a la banque? (take them to the bank?)

"Non."

"Quoi, toilet man?" By this time, I'd almost peed my pants.

He raised his voice, saying I should take the coins to a store and put them in a machine. or something???

I was not letting go, if you know what I mean.

Toilet man pushed the coins on the counter toward me with a pained look on his face that, that I read as m, merde. That is not why I was there, but what could I do? By this time I was even stuttering.

I had been hiding a 50 cent piece in my pocket all along, and realized I had no choice but to relieve myself of it.

Which is what I did, finally.

In the photo, two of the smallest coins - 2 cents - are sitting all by themselves, below the pile. I wanted to offer T-man these as a bonus because he did not live in Paris, but I thought twice about that.

Now, what are we going to do with all these coins? They are getting heavy. The reason J has a bag full of them is because one of the big Lost in Translation things in France is understanding how much something costs, so Joanne keeps paying with paper money and gets all her change in coins. Toilets and toll booths don't take copper.

I finally found a yoga mat. At the Decathlon sporting goods store in Antibes. Two euros!

The Vaucluse is in the Luberon.

Can anyone suggest a copyright-free map app for a blog so I can locate things for the reader?

Mount Ventoux looms large over the Vaucluse.
The cap of the mountain is limestone where nothing grows, and all the tourist brochures say that tourists think they are looking at snow. We were looking at snow. We could not even go up there because the road was closed.