Let me just go back a bit….The majority of places you visit
will be swarming with scowling waiters ready to ignore your most simple
request.
But I jest, of course. In my experience of waiters in Paris
they are just as friendly, or rather just as ambivalent, as anywhere else. But
I don’t want to talk about whether or not Parisian waiters are friendly today, I want to know whether you agree with A or B below when I say, Table Service...
A ...is un-fecking-believably amazing and should be law
B ...has been invented by someone who hates me
What do you think? It is A. Right?
It must be (surely), because table service means that not
only does an (often cute) guy bring me drinks all night, but I don’t need to
move unless to leave the café/bar or to have a wee. No queuing at the bar, no
deciding whose round it is. Just order – drink – pay – stumble off. Brilliant.
Well brilliant, say, 50% of the time. The other 50% I feel
like a total tool.
When I'm on my own and fancy a nice relaxing sit down and coffee, simply opening the door of a café involves serious mental
will and an internal dialogue that runs something like: “if you’re utterly humiliated
it doesn’t matter you won’t remember it in five years’ time…in the grand scheme
of things what does a waiter’s withering look matter?…just go in and if it’s
confusing you can just walk away and never step foot in this arrondisement again…”
I’m so scared of getting something wrong, of being foolishly
unaware of an unsaid yet obvious rule that only tourists <spit> and
people from the country <spit again> would not understand, that I usually walk straight past all the cute looking cafes and bars headfirst into
Starbucks. Which isn’t exactly living the Parisian dream, you know?
But I am setting myself a mission for 2012: to find a cafe where I comfortably take myself off to on my own to read my book for an hour.
It might not be easy, dear friends. There might be days where I return home tattered and exhausted after pounding the streets of Paris. My face may need medical treatment from blushing so much and my shoulders may permanently hunch from trying to fold into myself. But I will keep going. And I will find my cafe. And when I do, I will share my treasure with you.
PP
