Le Rhume

It's a truth universally acknowledged that kids are dirty, even the French ones. Sure, they're cute, chubby, and jolly whenever they're not in middle of a temper tantrum, but their cuteness is wrapped inside a germ-infested package of snotty noses, a desire to touch every piece of shiny trash on the street, and an inability to wash their hands properly after using the bathroom. Thankfully I love children anyway. They're mostly non-judgmental compared to their older teenage counterparts, and often give me petits dessins (deh-see-nawj: drawings) and handmade jewelery as their way of saying “I think you're alright”. And then, you know what? I think they're alright too. I respond well to gifts.

Considering I teach almost 200 children everyday, ride the Parisian metro ( the very dirty but practical subway) to and from work, and have been subsisting on a McDo's (meek-dohz: McDonald's in French) and yogurt diet because I'm broke and McDonald's is the only place in my neighborhood with free wifi, I'm actually pretty surprised I lasted two weeks in Paris without getting sick. But Thursday morning, when I woke-up to my alarm at 5:30 in the morning to dress for work, I had that all-too-familiar “oh shit” feeling: I was getting a cold, and I could tell this one was going to—how you say—suck balls.

Let it be said that the French don't seem to handle having une maladie (oon mahl-ah-dee: an illness) very well. You should see the way they baby their children at the slightest mention of a stomach ache, and it seems that every time I show up to work some teacher or another is at home sick, recovering from what could only be terminal pneumonia from the way the French dramatize it. 

 

This all makes sense if you think about it, considering that not too long ago Paris was ridden with plagues, death, and the worst possible stench you could possibly imagine. However, I was under the impression that underground plumbing in France was installed long ago, doing away with the need to associate the common cold with death, but still this fear seems to have been passed down through the generations. The French won't hesitate to go to the doctor the moment their throat starts to itch, and in case le médecin (luh mehd-uh-sun: the doctor) is out on vacation, there's une pharmacie (oon farm-uh-see: a pharmacy) on every street corner selling every type of snake oil to cure whatever particularly ails you, whether that be your puss-encrusted pink eye or the cottage cheese pattern on your thighs.

After spending two and a half hours waiting for the train in the cold suburban air due to yet another grève (grehv: strike), I was feeling particularly crappy the next day and headed to the corner pharmacy myself to hopefully find some generic equivalent to DayQuil. Not so easy in France, where pharmacists tend to be treated with as much revere and respect as doctors--and porquoi pas (por-kwa pah: why not), I guess—though this means that all over-the-counter medicine is actually kept over the counter. In order to get so much as a multivitamin, you have to explain your each and every symptom to the pharmacist before she will prescribe what she deems appropriate and hand it over to you. 

 

This is the case even for something as simple as buying ibuprofen, as I experienced last year, when I explained to the man behind the counter, « I'd like some ibuprofen, please » to which he responded « Why? ». Confused, I explained « Because I have pain ». « You should take aspirin, it's better » he said, handing me a ten euro box of aspirin. To which I had to explain that I, in fact, had horrible menstrual cramps and ibuprofen is the only thing that works, and where's a box of tampons while we're at it? Eventually he gave in, but I've never willingly walked into a pharmacy ever since.

But this is a brand new year, in a brand new city in France, and my cold was making me feel particularly pathetic, so in my plugged-up nose, watery eye, sore throat and chills haze, I stood at the pharmacy counter down the street explaining to the nice, soft-spoken lady pharmacist in my broken French (translated here for your comfort and my humiliation): 

 

«Good day! I have a nose that is....I do not know how to say... » as I point to my nose trying my best to make snot motions with my hands. 

 

The pharmacist helps me out  « stuffed or runny? » she asks in French. 

I think for a minute and decide « yes, runny!», making runny snot motions with my hand now just as she did, realizing that I had never until this moment bothered to consider whether a stuffy nose was actually runny or vice versa, « and I have bad in my throat and eyes with some water. Is it that you have things for to hide the symptoms?»

« Yes, of course! Tell me, do you have chills? »

« But yes, I do! »

« Do you have a fever? »

I feel my forehead, wondering why I never bothered to ask myself the same question, « No, I do not believe so! »

« And how are your bowel movements? »

« Fine. Just fine . »

I look behind my shoulder and the customers waiting in line at the next cash register over are looking at me with sly grins on their face, partly thrilled to be witnesses to my humiliation and partly intrigued by my over-eager French phrases that would make even a two year-old cringe.

The pharmacist strolls over and takes down the French equivalent of DayQuil and some cough drops. She explains to me that I'm to take the DayQuil—called Actifed in France—once every four hours, on a full stomach, and then the night pill at night, when it's dark and before I go to sleep. Then she explains the cough drops to me, saying « These you suck on, to make your throat losen up and feel better. They're sweet and they taste good. ». At five euros a box, I didn't care how good they tasted. I'm an American, not an idiot, and I'd rather spend my five euros on something more worthwhile, like a bottle of wine, than 12 honey-flavored cough drops. I know when I'm being gypped.

I tell her I'll just take the Actifed. She gives me a look with raised eyebrows, then says « as you like ». I pay, say my most polite merci (mer-see: thank you) and leave at a casual strolling pace, vowing never again to forget the name for French DayQuil, as that entire fiasco could have been avoided.

Two days later, and I still feel like crap but thanks to that lovely pharmacist's keen powers of deduction, she was able to properly surmise that I, in fact, have le rhum (luh room: a cold). Maybe if I had just bought the damn cough drops, I'd be cured by now.