Paris – Dog S@%T Bridge! The Beginning Of The End

Shortly before the end of my first marriage, I knew the exact moment that I knew.  Really knew.  It was over.  The marriage.  We were walking from our hotel on the Isle St. Louis across the bridge, probably Pt. Neuf, who knows exactly now.  We were snobs back then, and we were on our way to the best restaurant in the world.  You know, the one that gives you a postcard with the number of the duck you just ate.  They have been keeping track of every duck they’ve ever served, or at least since they started numbering them, since I’m not a snob anymore I don’t know the exact time they started numbering the ducks and lack the initiative to track that small insignificant detail down.  Getting back to the name of this post, dog shit bridge, why I was walking in high heels across Paris to save cab-fare to go eat in one of the world’s most expensive restaurants, I have no idea, other than butt-head was a cheap bastard.  There, got that out!  Took years of therapy to say that!  Anyway just saying butthead unlocked that secret memory of the name of the incredibly fabulous restaurant, the only one in Paris that was allowed to keep its’ wine cellar during the German occupation of WWII, La Tour D’Argent, tower of gold?  tower of money?  Whatever, it was really swanky.  Sorry, I digressed.  The name of this post.  Have to change it here, can’t use the @ because it keeps getting turned into a link, you’ll just have to go with me, I’ll just say it:  dog shit bridge.  Well in Paris, back then at least, probably now too, everyone and their brother had a dog.  And of course they walked their dog.  And the dogs pooped.  The beautifully coiffed and clothed stood by while their pooch pooped.  Right on the sidewalk.  Then, ignoring the entire procedure, they sidestepped the pile and left it there.  It wasn’t part of the culture to carry a paper towel and plastic bag and just pick it up.  They did something else; nothing.  So everyone else just had to sidestep the poop.  So here I was, walking across the bridge in my painfully chic high heels, and I stepped in a huge pile of poop…. It went up over the tops of my shoes and between my toes.  And butt-head laughed.  And I had nothing to clean it up with.  And I knew then.  I would never travel with a man so cheap as to demand walking to a fancy restaurant.  Rather pay cab-fare and go to a moderate restaurant.  Then I thought I’d never go to Europe with this ignoramus again.  This was our third time.  Then I thought damn, I’ll just never travel with him again.  Then I thought I don’t want to go home with him either.  Then, if I don’t want to go home with him, I don’t want to live with him, either.  Then if I don’t want to live with him, screw it, the marriage is over.  Period.  That fast.  It was done.  Finis. 

Oh well so much for the story of the bad marriage to the cheap bastard.  That happens all the time.  But here’s something you didn’t know – - – - what do they do in Paris with all that crap?  I mean really, you can’t believe it, it’s everywhere!!! Or was, anyway, I haven’t been there in awhile, maybe it’s gotten better?  Who knows, it’s not something they have in the sophisticated guidebooks, like they’re really going to say “London is a bargain this time of year, plus they have scant scat to step over.”  Right.  So you just have to discover this type of thing for yourself.  Back to the Paris poop problem, they’ve got it handled, or at least they did back then!  One morning I was up at the crack of dawn, or probably just before, and I saw an army of uniformed service men, and they were busy dealing with all the crap on the sidewalk.  In the gutters there were small spigots to turn on water.  The men carried a lot of rags, and made dams in the street along the sidewalk and curb, and turned on the spigots of water and flooded the sidewalks and swept all the poop and other gross stuff off the sidewalks and into the little rivers they’d created.  Then they pulled out the rags at one end of the dam, and it whooshed down the drain!  That was it!  So I guess it’s just the Americans in Paris that have a problem with the poop, for the natives of Paris it’s job security!!  Viva la France!

Oh an update… since I remembered the name of the restaurant, I thought I’d link to it, so I looked up their website, which is tourdargent with a dot and a com.  I spell it out that way because their legal disclaimer states that I must have written authorization prior to hypertext linking to them.  So I sent them an email requesting permission, but since the name of their fancy schmancy restaurant is in the same post with dog poop, I doubt they’ll allow it, and if that’s the case I’ll try to remember where I did link it already, at the top of this post somewhere, and I already did it before I realized I couldn’t.  Who ever heard of that anyway?  Oh well to add insult to injury I’ll just throw in a vulgar ad here to make things really American: Save up to $325 on European Vacation Packages!