A morning in Paris

I hated myself of being always 15-min late. This inborn disease has already ruined my youth that from time to time, from occasions to occasions, I made my theatrical appearance at the wrong timing! Surprise and a followed look of dismay! Always being late… my disease… that I ended up empty-handed and empty-hearted at my twenties.

Given that my professeur has rescheduled the class from 9am to 9:30am to accommodate my disease, my turning up in the class at precisely 9:30 + 15 would be a fatal defeat to both him and myself. For he simply doesn't understand that the disease is not a physical syndrome but a psychological miscalculation, which, according to the latest medical discovery, we the "latecomers" are given political-correctness as the "timely impaired". A term derived from "vertically impaired" (for the not-too-tall-ones) and "horizontally impaired" (for the not-too-slim-ones). Since you can't accuse me for being not-too-tall or not-too-slim, you can't equally accuse me for not sharply on time. Anyone befriended with me has to take in my disease, for it is part of the package, included in the deal. And yet I still feel sorry for my professeur and awfully ashamed for myself. Oh, my dear, I wish I have had given up my 15 mins of lingering in the bed for just being on time! Well, I do really hope so at this moment.

So, the beautiful sunshine illuminated me at this important second to make a clever and wonderful decision: I-am-not-going-to-class-this-morning! Yap… cowardice, it might seem to huh… But for me, it’s one of the glorious acts that make me more parisienne. I would love to go to a café, sitting under the sun, contemplating the passersby, smiling to the handsome French guys while pretending to read the most philosophical book from my bookshelves. But this is not a budget-wise choice. I mean you have to make the most out of a paid coffee. Say, a cappuccino of 5 euro will directly translate into 5 hours of enjoyment in a chic parisien café. Given that I have only two hours, I decide to benefit from the easement gratuit (free) offered by the generous city of Paris. The Opera House is within 3-min walk westward from where I am, and the Palais-Royal is 4-min walk eastward. If I have a picnic sandwich in my bag I would opt for Palais-Royal. But in the early morning I would like to immerse myself in the most cosmopolitan part of the world. So I head westward, amidst the hustles of traffics and passersby, to the Opéra.

To sit gratuitement (for free) in front of the extravagant Opéra, you have to pay your cost. Now, no matter willingly or not, you are part of the mobile scenery for touristique photos. Quite unprepared today, I know my mistake the moment I sit down at the stairs: my sharp rosy cardigan! Wow… a nightmare for any film director to have an extra in sharp rosy cardigan! Helplessly, I put on my sunglasses.

It's an unexpected beautiful sun and I am happy that I have made a wise decision at the "right timing". Oh, thank God, I am finally on the right timing! I love Paris for the reason that it is free. Free in both the senses of "freedom" and "for free", and now I am enjoying both: Freedom for free! Stretching in front of my eyes is the generously wide Avenue de L'Opéra and the spectacular blue sky of Paris! "One thing I can't understand is that why there are always white clouds in the Paris' sky when it's blue" (Quote from C.A.)

I take out my book and start reading. The kid next to me is so cute that I fall for his charm. He has a pair of lovely big blue eyes and two sweet little lips ornamented with chocolate. This little angelic monster keeps proving himself the most athletic bébe in the world by running away from his mother. It's not that he doesn't love his mother but that for this little parisien, everything but his mom in the outside world is seductive. Well after all, you can't marry your mom, can you? He is pretty consistent in his taste that he keeps running in the same direction, taking the right of the Opéra towards the road. Yeah, quite a suicidal act for a bébe of 20 months! His mother shouting "Larry, Stop! Larry, Stop!" in vain. She should have known that for a 20-month bébe who hasn’t yet learnt to speak, words are meaningless to him. They are just sounds of excitements and urgency. "Stop! Larry, Stop!" might just as well be "Hurry! Larry, Hurry!" or "Bravo! Larry, Bravo!" to him. Whether they are encouraging or discouraging shouts, it's difficult to say. For him, in order to be a responsible kid, as all adults are, the only sensible thing to do then is just be happy, so those who love him dearly would be equally happy. He makes his heroic act by continuing his expedition to the wild world of crazy traffics!

He might as well find himself in a jungle for the reason that he's wearing sun cream on his face and neck and that people around him (such as his mom and me) having sunglasses. What's so wrong then that one takes a little adventure of going to the wild when one's in a jungle? He wishes that he had the swiftness and long arms of a monkey so that he can escape his mom’s grasp. It true that every time his mom's big hand arrives neatly on time to grasp him back. Yet, in each run, he manages to explore a bit further into this huge jungle. One time he nearly succeeds in escaping should there not be a Monsieur-passerby who hooks at his back collar with two fingers. Up! He is in the air! Well, finally he secretly enjoys himself being a monkey hanging to a tree!

In a "pirouette en air", he sees his mom rushing exhaustively to him with a relieving and apologetic smile on her face. In one of the most solemn exchanges of salutations and souvenirs, neatly performed in the setting of a Third Republic's opera house, the bébe is back to his mom's arms. Instead of being tied to a tree truck, his mom imprisons him in his mobile jail, fixes firmly the locks of the belt to make him and the world safe.

So there he is, starring at me from his jail, pleading for innocence and international intervention for his injustice. With a seductive angelic smile, he bribes me with his black 2007 model BMW. Bébe fatal! In order to avoid a scandal which will probably end up in another national crisis after the Clear-Stream (though I am not a Taiwanese, being a Chinese is enough to be part of the game), I have to decline his generous offer and come out clean-handed. Desperately, he hides away the BMW for his next potential savior! And his mother drives away his mobile jail, crosses the grand Boulevard Hussmann.