I had just gotten off of work and had met up with my brother to do some shopping. We had gone into a popular retail chain and had been randomly looking through the shelves when I noticed that two women were headed my way. They completely took up the whole lane and I didn’t want to back all the way just to get past. I spotted a break between two shelves, so I quickly darted to the spot, and straightened up to try and make myself as inobstructive as possible.

The ladies slowly started to pass, randomly looking at the clothes on the shelves, and then stopped right in front of me. They started admiring my outfit (I was in a three-piece suit) and at first I thought they were going to compliment it.

However, they started opening up my jacket and feeling the lining, pulling at my belt buckle, and before they could start taking a closer look at my pants, I managed to come out of my shock enough to clear my throat. 

Both women froze, and slowly looked up at my face for the first time in this interaction.

Me: “Hello… I’m not a mannequin.”

Both women turned bright red, turned, and quickly left the shop. I know on this site there have been plenty of people who have been mistaken for workers, but this is the first time I had had it happen to me… And a worker who’s not alive at that.

I had the chance to study abroad in Europe while I was in college. I’m sad to say that I committed the cardinal sin of not learning much of any of the languages of the countries I visited. This was pre-smartphones, so there was no Google and no translation apps, just Internet cafes.

My language deficiency wasn’t too much of an issue in our primary base in the Netherlands, but we had long weekends and a few weeks to travel and explore. A friend on the trip taught me a few French phrases on the way to an excursion in Paris, and they served me well. As long as I was courteous and made an attempt to speak French, most Parisians took pity on me and helped the American tourist who gave it her best shot.

I had some free time during our excursion and needed to change an upcoming travel plan, which meant I needed an Internet cafe. I set off in the direction indicated by our hotel concierge but quickly became lost.

Luckily, I spotted a Guinness ad in a bar window — the universal sign for an Irish pub, an international watering hole.

I went inside, and the barman greeted me.

Barman: “Bonjour.”

Then, he said something in rapid French beyond my comprehension.

Me: “Bonjour.”

I made a painful attempt at the phrase my friend had taught me to ask if they spoke English.

Barman: “Quoi?”

I repeated the phrase, less confident this time.

Barman: *In an Irish accent* “I know what you meant, love, but you said it wrong.”

He ended up giving me directions, the correct phrasing, and a beer.

I studied abroad in Europe during college. After a group trip to Paris, we had a free week, and I chose to stay an extra day and explore the city some more. I booked a hostel based on positive reviews, and a few friends decided to stay in the same place before we went off on our individual travels.

I checked in and was given a bunk in a large, mixed-gender dorm room. Fair enough, it’s a hostel and that’s pretty standard. However, this was my first time sleeping in a larger dorm alone, and the other guests were mostly unfamiliar and older men. More of my friends showed up, and we had enough to book a private room together. 

The new room was just off the hostel’s main courtyard, where all the guests gathered outside the on-site bar. While the atmosphere in reviews had been described as fun and friendly, it was an older clientele than our group of young college kids and already very drunk and rowdy. We settled in but discovered that there was no way to lock the door from the inside; the mechanism on the interior was missing, and the bolt could only be turned using the outside keyhole.

A drunk guest we didn’t know jokingly offered to take our key, lock the door from the outside, and come unlock us in the morning. Shockingly, our group of nineteen-year-old girls declined that offer. 

We were bone tired and lying on our bunks, debating what to do about the door situation, when I noticed a shoelace threaded through the slats of the bunk over mine. We ended up using that shoelace to tie the latching pieces of the interior lock together, keeping the two halves of the swinging door shut. Since it opened inward, we piled our suitcases in front of the door, as well.

We eventually fell asleep while the party in the courtyard raged. Late, late at night, once things had finally quieted down, we heard the door start to swing inward. I was so exhausted that I barely lifted my head when I heard the door lightly thump to a stop. There were no more sounds, so I dropped my head back down and fell back to sleep.

The next morning, we discovered that the old, random shoelace was still tied through the lock but barely hanging by a single thread. One more push and the lace would have snapped, the suitcases pushed aside.

We all checked out with relief, after noting the graffiti in the bathroom stalls (toilets and sinks only, no showers) saying the writer would rather spend a night in the street than another night at that hostel. Where was that warning when I booked the hostel?!

My friends and I set off on our individual adventures. I was supposed to take an extremely budget flight to Ireland, but an air traffic strike meant that no flights would leave that day. I had another day to spend in Paris, all by myself, but I knew there was no way I’d go back to that hostel alone.

I ended up returning to the hotel our group had stayed in during the school excursion, paying six times the hostel rate for a room, locking the door, and taking an hour-long bubble bath to wash off the hostel.

I am the author of this story. As promised, here is another story of working in this American bookstore in Paris thirty years ago.

One day, I notice a client behaving in an odd manner. He is staying around the table where we have the recommended books and picking them up, covering part of the book with his hand, mumbling something while shaking his head, and then putting the book back.

I approach and offer the usual friendly request:

Me: “May I help you with anything?”

The client looks at me and then looks back at the books. He grabs one them.

Client: “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?”

He puts his hand on the cover, removes it, and puts it back again. I do not remember the book precisely, but I think President Bill Clinton was on the cover.

Client: “They really seem human — until you cover half their face!”

He puts back his hand on the cover and removes it again, and I notice that he is actually covering the bottom part of Clinton’s face.

Client: “It’s only when you do this that you can notice the lizard eyes. They are well camouflaged.”

Me: “…”

He does the same thing with another book while mumbling and shaking his head.

Me: “Ah, I’m sorry, someone is calling for me.”

And yes, I beat a hasty retreat.

The client was not bothering anyone and not doing anything untoward, so I left him on his quest — but I made sure to stay safely away while keeping an eye on him.

Related:
At Least It Isn’t Blue This Time

I was in charge of Public Relations for a large IT company, and as a result, I had to handle an American executive as we did press interviews in six different European countries in five days. The main problem was that I was with an American who hated Europe. He was grumpy because there was no jogging track around the Eiffel Tower and because no UK journalists wanted to meet him for breakfast meetings at 6:00 am. In Paris, he insisted we eat dinner at an Angus Steak House.

At the departure lounge in the Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris, he went into total meltdown.

Client: “I can’t stand all these French people smoking. Make them stop.”

Me: “Yeah, good one.”

Client: “I’m serious. Go over there and tell them to stop smoking. Now.”

I walked over to the group of French students who were chain-smoking Gitanes and asked them if they knew the time. I went back to the client and told him they had said, “Go forth and multiply.”