A bribe in Paris

I read the blog of Earl Pomerantz just about every day. Well, he only publishes on week-days so I read his blog, Just Thinking..., every week-day. Over the last three days, he has written a story about trying to set up an arrangement at a resort in Hawaii to get the folks who set out the chairs and towels for the guests to set his family's chairs and towel out every morning without his needing to wait in line. It involved an arrangement where he "took care of" the attendants at the beginning of his stay. The "taking care of" was a kind of bribe, I guess. Reading his story reminded me of something that happened to me back in 1987 when I was working for the US Geological Survey. We had been working on a research vessel off the coast of Africa. To get back home, we had to fly from Abidjan, Ivory Coast to Paris and spend the night (no one complained) to get the connecting flight the next morning. The whole group of us, about six or seven people, were traveling together.

We all went to a restaurant that was packed. We waited and waited for a table and there was no place to sit. I was trying to get one of the women of our group to notice me and thought I'd be a big shot and get us a table. I was shaking and nervous because I'd never done it before but my desire for this woman to notice me was greater than my fear. My French was horrible and the Maitre D' didn't speak English very well. I handed him a large Franc note and tried to explain why I was giving him money. I thought he'd been through this before but the look on his face made me even more afraid. It was a mixture of shock and anger. Maybe I insulted him or maybe I had been too obvious and he was afraid the owner had seen it. He looked like he was going to pass out. I didn't know what to do and tried to explain some more but I think I was just making it worse. And I wasn't sure that maybe, in my broken French, I was asking him to give my dog a bath or something.

He kept holding the money in his hand so I just grabbed it back and slunk back to my friends. I remember that the woman I was trying to impress had seen the whole thing and thought it was funny. So, in the end end, she did notice me and we talked a good bit that evening but mostly about how inept I was. Nothing much ever came of our conversation that evening and I never tried to bribe anyone again.

I suggest reading Earl Pomerantz's posts. They can be found in three parts, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. They are better written, more insightful and funnier (he is a comedy writer after all). They are just better, OK?