"I will not voluntarily put on the chains of France while struggling to throw off those of Great Britain!"
As I type this, I'm wearing only a scarf. I think this might mean I have become more French than is good for me.
See, I have a nasty case of bronchitis, and prior to finally going to see my doctor yesterday and getting antibiotics and cough syrup and an inhaler to open my poor bronchi (which, if I had paid for completely out of pocket, would have been 22€ for the visit, and another 20€ for the plethora of prescriptions; please, GOP, realize that any amount of tax credit won't do us any good if we're still being grossly overcharged by the health care industry -- but this isn't a political blog, so moving on...) I'd been self-medicating with hot, HOT showers roughly every four to six hours and trying to keep my bronchial area warm in between, primarily by cocooning myself in big huge comforters. Yesterday I only took one shower, which I think resulted in more hacking up of lungs, so today I returned to my pre-antibioticized practice of the near-constant showering. Now, when you're in the shower that frequently (and when you're not much of a fan of clothes anyway) you'll discover that complete nudity is a logical choice, unless the weather is crazy nice like it was today and wrapping up in multiple comforters is making you slightly die of heatstroke.
And so, you become French.
When people ask me about the differences between the USA and France, the first thing I usually say is that in the US, everything is bigger. When people ask me about the differences between Americans and Frenchies... the first thing that comes to mind is what I call the Hierarchy of Cold-Weather Clothing, for, like so many things, the French and American systems are completely different. In the States, you get cold, you put on a sweater/sweatshirt/hoodie, then a coat, then gloves; hats and scarves tend to be about equal although different subsets handle scarves differently (id est, hipsters immediately toss on the scarves; two-thirds of the guys who went to my old uni wouldn't have been caught dead in a scarf).
For Frenchies, the scarf goes first. You could be wearing a tank top and when you get cold? Put On A Scarf.
What if you're already wearing a scarf and you're cold? Yes, you Put On A Scarf, but you've either A) wrapped it incorrectly or B) chosen the wrong thickness.
If you go on a beach vacation, and you're frolicking through the waves wearing nothing but a speedo (because anything else is just UNCLEAN!) and the sun starts to set so it's now two entire degrees colder than it was an hour ago? Put On A Scarf.
If there is sleet coursing to the earth so hard that even the cobblestones under your feet are ducking for cover and you're dressed in a hooded parka and pants and boots so thick you could withstand an Antarctic windstorm even though you're in the middle of Paris, two blocks from your house? You will still be cold, until you Put On A Scarf.
And, if you have bronchitis and you feel like your choices consist of either breathing but coughing so hard your pain level has gone to 11 or not being in pain but then also not breathing, so you take long hot showers because the steam and heat help a lot with that nifty breathing thing, but in between showers it's too warm to go the comforter cocoon route even though you're naked? Put On A Scarf.
And
that, my friends, is how I have become Too French.
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