The one in which I end up face down in a bus...

So last Friday I was running around doing some shopping errands. And by that I mean going to 5 different stores in order to get the necessary ingredients to make some simple American cakes.

So… to the bio coop (organic co-op), then the primeur (produce seller), then the bus 35 minutes to the specialty baking shops, then with my 8 lbs of ingredients and new cake pans, I traipse back to my bus stop. Halfway home I realize I have one more stop before I’m done. Me and my 4kilos get off the bus and start looking for the map to find the shop I need, but of course this was the one bus stop without a map. So I start asking people, then my bags are to heavy, then I ask if I can leave my bags. Then I run around the neighborhood for 10 minutes looking for this huge street that was just above the bus stop I arrived at. I grab the last ingredient and a sandwich, before looking for another 8 minutes for the shop I left my stuff in. Then I kindly buy a bottle of wine from the man, and leave 1 kilo heavier. It’s good for me, right?

Then I run up to the bus stop (it’s 3pm, I am tired, hungry and heavy with baking supplies). I arrive just as the bus is pulling up. God love the bus driver with perfect timing! I sit down in a nearly empty bus, sighing in sweaty relief that I can put my 10 lbs of bags down and eat something. It’s going to be fine, I tell myself, I just have to get home with all of this stuff. And then it happens, the bus driver slams on the brakes to narrowly avoid an accident and suddenly I and my sandwich are mid-air. With hardly anyone on the bus there is nothing to break my momentum but a thin metal pole. (Should I say something about me being wrapped around a pole for the first time in my life? Because NOW – a week later when my bruises have turned yellow – it’s funny).

So, tomato, cucumber, lettuce, cheese and tuna (and slices of egg, because they put slices of hardboiled egg on their sandwiches here) fly out onto the floor. I am fully layed out on my stomach on the gray plastic linoleum.

Head on my forearm, I start to stand up. The bus driver asks me if I’m ok. I am prepared to yell out my feelings on him like a true Parisienne -but just then, I notice my adopted snobby Parisian pride on the floor...smashed between a chunk of tuna and egg.