Your Papers Please . . .

Woke up at 2:30am this morning to drive the Husband to the airport in Toulouse.

Driving out of a mid-sized town about a half hour from Toulouse, we were stopped by a roadblock of gendarmes.

There’s a curfew in some towns that have been hit by car burning. So we were viewed as a suspicious vehicle at 3:30 in the morning.

Four good-looking, physically fit gendarmes descended on our car. I swear that the main requirement for becoming a French gendarme is that you have to be a good-looking, white male . . . your have to pass the blue motorcycle pants test.

I was driving. Luckily, the Husband had shaved off his beard two days ago so he no longer resembled a Middle-Eastern terrorist. He had his hair pulled back in a pony tail; but that wouldn’t send off alarm bells here in France where the “intellectual” men wear their hair flowing.

Whenever I get stopped by the gendarmes, they make me nervous and my French language skills disintegrate.

The tall studly gendarme asked me to do something, and I just assumed he wanted to see the papers for the car. So I asked the Husband to hand them to me, and he fumbled around in the dark, finally locating them in the glove box.

The Husband handed me the papers, and the PATIENT gendarme said, in French, “I didn’t ask for your papers, I told you to turn your car off.”

“Oh, okay,” I replied in French and turned off the car. “But you need to speak slowly.”

He nodded. “Now, give me your car registration and your drivers’ license.”

I handed him both. He matched up the name on the registration card with my license, then consulted with his colleagues over the meaning of my birth date . . .not knowing if I was born in July or September because the French write the day first and the Americans write the numerical month first.

He handed me back the documents. I assumed the check was over. But then, to my amazement he told us to get out of the car. I had just read something on a blog about what pricks the French cops can be, so I admit that I was a bit worried. I left the keys in the ignition, and the Husband and I both got out of the car.

The main gendarme told me to open up the trunk. I had to go retrieve the keys to do that. I opened the trunk. It was packed with the Husband’s luggage. The gendarmes gathered around the trunk to look . . .but they didn’t touch anything.

The main gendarme told me we could go on. They didn’t ask us where we were going or coming from at 3:30 in the morning. The Husband told me as we drove off that they were looking for gasoline cans . . .it’s now illegal in France to have one in your car.

That was our excitement for the morning! Next time, I’ll fix my hair and slap on some make-up when I make the airport run.

I mentioned to the Husband that I thought the gendarme was very calm and patient when we were fumbling around in the glovebox . . .I said an American cop would have barked out the order again to turn off the car. The Husband agreed and pointed out that the French cops aren't paranoid about getting shot like the American cops are so they can be a bit calmer.

I arrived back at the house at 6:16am, and promptly went back to sleep. I was awakened at 9am by the barking dogs when Roger came over to let the chickens out of their coop as we had pre-arranged. I didn't know I'd be back so early.

The chickens gave me an egg today . . .so I made dumplings for dinner.

The buck has arrived . . .I’ll write more about that at a later date.