Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Au voleur





On Saturday morning, I was rudely awakened from my sleep by a neighbour shouting down the intercom “Madame, they’ve smashed your car, they’ve smashed your car! Get the police!”
 
As I was wearing a henna-stained nightie, two shower caps and a woollen bonnet, I couldn’t rush down immediately. However, once my Golden Oak locks had been rinsed and dried, I nervously made my way downstairs with a feeling of dread.
If I didn’t know better, I would say my car is cursed. The very first time I parked it in front of my flat, it got keyed. Then some drunken thugs backed into it, leaving a dent. Once, I had to call out the breakdown truck at two in the morning because the car just stopped as I was driving someone home. I still cringe at the memory of Mr Breakdown Man saying “Um – you’ve run out of petrol”. To be fair, I use LPG but nobody told me it needed petrol in order to run. Nobody ever tells me anything.
Then I had a violent tussle with a kerbstone in the rush hour and had to buy a whole new wheel.
And now this.


In fact, when I saw what they’d done to the car, I was relieved. Only the window was smashed and the radio-CD player stolen. Or rather, the façade had been stolen. I’m a bit thick when it comes to practical matters and I hadn’t realized that the façade was detachable and I was supposed to take it off in order to prevent people smashing the window to steal it.
I know now.
I took photos, like the police told me to, using the last of my precious ink to print them and photocopy all the documents they asked for. Then I spent two hours waiting at the commissariat and reading every single copy of Femme Actuelle and Auto Moto before a policewoman took my statement. She was far more interested in the fact that I’d been born in Cambridge than looking at my photos and kept throwing oddly inappropriate phrases at me in broken English.
I finally got through to the insurance company who told me they didn’t need the dépôt de plainte at all and that they couldn’t reimburse the radio or – and I swear I detected a snigger here - suggest how to extract the George Benson CD.
Thank goodness for Golden Oak Herbal hair dye, that’s all I can say. The stress of living here is turning my hair completely grey…


10 comments:

Unknown said...

Gigi

Now, that's more like it!

A little bit ranty, a little bit not normal - that's the sort of thing we expect from you!

All the best

Keith

P.S. Any chance of a photo of you wearing "a henna-stained nightie, two shower caps and a woollen bonnet?"

P.P.S. You've actually got a George Benson CD? Or did it just come with the car and you've not got round to extracting it yet? I don't htink I've ever met anyone who admits to owning a George Benson CD!

Gigi said...

Sorry Keith - all rinsed off...

As for George Benson - well, you know, I thought it was about time I came out.

Just gimme the night...aha aha...just...

Sarah said...

What a horrible thing to happen, but good thing the insurance will cough up.

Who's George Benson? Should I remember him? :)

Gigi said...

Sarah!!! You don't know who George Benson is? Mind you, you're probably too young - "Give me the night" came out in 1980 and made it into the charts. He's a jazz guitarist but sort of 'poppy' too. We used to dance to him down at the disco :-)

Unknown said...

Sarah

My memories of 1980 are a bit vague but...

I do seem to remember that George Benson was someone the Old People liked!

At discos they always played Gimme the night so that anyone over the age of 30 (that was old to us then) could get up and have a bop with running the risk of dislodging their pacemakers!

Those same people that we used to laugh st for pronouncing Duran Duran like Durham Durham!

Our parents, in other words!

Perhaps Gigi inherited her CD?

All the best

Keith

P.S. Come to think of it; CDs weren't invented then so...

That means that Gigi must have either been given it as a Christmas present by an Aged Aunt or, worse...

Gone out and bought it herself!

I can imagine the shop assistants dining out for months on that story!

Gigi said...

Don't listen to him, Sarah...

Bredispain said...

HA! Hilarious - I feel your pain about the car issues, so far we have been keyed, we have had a stranger bang into it at 7am when his axel broke, and most recently a group of 10 drunk boys fighting in the street made a dent in it by throwing someone on the car. Ahhh...good times! Good luck in future!

Gigi said...

Oh dear, Bredispain :-( Where exactly do you live?
Burning, stealing and trashing cars is quite frequent here (I had to run down at two in the morning recently to drive mine away from the exploding one behind it!) and I feel lucky that - so far- mine is still in one piece. Hmmm. So far...

Unknown said...

I can't believe it!

I'm actually listening to George Benson!

Not his girlie Pop stuf mind you; his more hard core Jazz (cos I'm a man!)

Gigi - you do know that I totally blame you for this!

All the best

Keith

Gigi said...

Ha ha ha!!!! Don't worry Keith - I won't tell. Much...