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unmaskedagain · 5 years ago

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Wolves don’t Party with Sheep

I got this request last week, and I thought it was a neat idea. Thanks @etsuko-99 for sending me the ask.

When the Akuma alert sounded, most of the class had been at the end of year party at the park. They had been planning it for weeks and had been careful not to reveal its existence to the class problems aka Marinette, Chloe, and Nathaniel. The three had been has exiled from the rest of the call all year for their bullying of Lila and mean accusations that the girl was lying.

Class president? They voted to replace Marinette the first day of school.

Class picnics; the three weren’t invited.

Field trips; they got Bustier to exclude the three in the beginning of the year. Not that it mattered anyway; all the wonderful trips they had wanted to take had fallen through. They never had enough money to take it. And they never did the required paperwork.

Birthday parties; they weren’t invited to anyone’s in the class. No one went to Nathanial’s birthday party. Or Chloe’s. No one even bother to accept Marinette’s birthday party invitations, she mailed out a month ago. They even missed the required RSVP date on the front on purpose. The invitation was clear, if you don’t confirm your planned attendance, you can’t come. Then they told Marinette they were going to a party for Lila instead.

No one wanted the drama. No one wanted Lila to feel like she wasn’t welcome. And if the three found out, then maybe they should’ve been nicer.

Again, everyone from the class who was invited showed up apart from Adrien to Lila’s dismay. Alya assured the tearful girl that Adrien was probably just busy at a photoshoot, he’d be there if he could.

Lila had just stepped away from for a moment to take a call from Prince Ali when the Akuma alert sounded.

It was a socialite hurt by the malicious lies her so-called friends said about each other by each other’s back decided that everyone should be forced to reveal what they really think. The Akuma was called Two-faced (As soon as Two-face from Gotham heard about the new villain, he contacted his lawyer; someone was getting sued.) Every time someone talked; the world would hear their inner voice say what they really thought about you.

“We should wait for Ladybug,” Alya said. “She’ll be here soon. Nino, turned down the music we don’t want to attract the Akuma’s attention.”

“You don’t kiss me enough,” Alya’s voice was suddenly heard throughout the party, though the girl’s mouth was shut. “You’re amazing. I love how much you dream. You’re a little naïve. We’re perfect for each other. But what’s a girl got to do to get to third base?”

Nino blushed a scarlet red. There were snickers from the fellow students.

“Babe, a little awkward; maybe no one should talk.” Nino said. But as soon as his mouth closed. “I’ve already named all of our children.”

The laughter that resulted from this laughter the couple paralyzed.

“This is so amazing,” Rose burst out. As soon as she stopped talking. “Juleka? Look at me! I have been flirting with you for three years. You know what I got for it? Nothing. Do you like me or not? You think you got it bad, Alya. I once showed up at her house drenched in rain, in a t-shirt, and Juleka didn’t bat an eye. Stop complaining. At you got a boyfriend who wants to kiss you. All I got from Juleka was insecurities.”

Juleka looked torn between wanted to die from embarrassment and looking utterly pleased with the situation.

Alix snorted, “Still think it’s amazing.” She mocked. Her eyes widened when she realized she spoke. “Rose, you’re the definition of a ditzy of blond. I can’t believe we’re friends.” There were gasps. Rose looked at Alix with hurt eyes. “Honestly, I can’t believe your friends with me. You’re nice, girly, and super sweet. A freaking ray of sunshine. Everything I’m not. I love you for it. I kind of hate you too. You’re the daughter my wishes she had. I can’t stand you sometimes.”

“Ouch!” Kim said and gasped. His inner voice added. “This is way too serious for me. I should’ve just hung out with Ondine. And how is no one talking about how killer Max’s ass looks in those jeans?”

The questions was met with blinks.

“Damn, I owe Luka ten bucks,” Juleka slipped out. She quickly covered her mouth but she couldn’t stop what came next. “Luka dislikes all of you. It’s why he left Kitty section. He’s thinks you’re all gullible idiots. He always told me to watch my back around you. After what happened with Marinette, I see why.”

Mylene frowned. She thought Luka left the band because he didn’t have time for it anymore. “That’s really mean.”

“Truthfully, I saw it coming,” Mylene’s inner voice said. “What’s a guy like that doing in a band called Kitty Section? I mean really. But yeah, I totally called in it Kim being a little into Max. Like back in third grade. The Chloe thing was a massive attempt to hide his crush. I get it. Max can do better than a Neanderthal.”

“Hey!” Max glared. “Like you’re one to talk!”

“Have you seen Ivan,” Max’s inner voice hissed. “He’s a future UFC champion. You’re a future kindergarten teacher. Mylene, beauty, Ivan, beast. It only works out in Disney movies, honey. Besides at least Kim’s funny, and cool, and nice, and hot. Wow, I can’t believe he likes me. I’m a geek.”

Kim grinned, “I like that you’re a geek.” His inner voice, “He’s thinks I’m hot. He think I’m hot. He thinks I’m hot. …I wonder if Nino would be cool with a joint wedding.”

“NO!” Nino and Alya yelled together. Their inner voice, “NO!”

After that everyone was too scared to speak; scared of what they really thought be heard.

That when Lila came back to the party. A happy grin on her face. “Sorry everyone, Prince Ali was insisting I attend his ball. I hope he’s isn’t going to purpose again.”

“You’re all a bunch morons,” Lila’s inner voice echoed through the park. “But useful ones. I’ve never even met Prince Ali.”

Lila paled, “I didn’t say that!”

“Crap,” Her inner voice cried. “What the hell is going on? Do you know how hard it is to keep my stories straight? How hard I work to get these sheep to believe me? Well, not that hard. They’re idiots. I few grand tales and practically believe I shit gold.”

The class stared at her horrified.

“It’s not me!” Lila stomped her foot.

Her inner voice cried out, “Don’t look at me like that. You’re the dumbasses who believed me. It’s your own fault. I only told you what you wanted to hear. Add a few tears and you did whatever I wanted.”

Alya gasped, “Marinette was right.” Her inner voice, “What have I done. My blog is ruined. I’ll lose all my fans.”

Lila fought not to glare, “Marinette’s a mean bully,” She whined. “Remember? She’s been so awful to me since I got here.”

“She called me out on my lies,” Lila’s inner voice snickered. “I warned her I’d get her back. I told her I’d take all her friends away. She should’ve believed me. You guys are idiots who believe everything I saw. Oh, Marinette picking on! Why doesn’t Marinette like me? Did I do something wrong? Waa! Waa! Now I’m here and she’s not. So there! I won!”

Lila finally picked up one what was going on and covered her mouth. The class remained silent torn between wanting to scream at the girl and keep what they really thought secret.

At that moment, Marinette, Nathaniel, Luka, Adrien, and Chloe strolled to through the park with ice cream cones in their hands and big smiles on their faces. They talked pleasantly with each other, stopping when they saw the party streamers and the class.

Marinette didn’t blink twice, “Another class party?” She said sweetly. “Our invitations must have been lost.”

Her inner voice was cold, “Doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t have come to your party if you paid me. Why do you think I put the deadline on the invites? I knew you’d pretend to forget to RSVP. I only invited you to my birthday party because my mom made me. Something about being nice or whatever.”

The students of Bustier’s class reared back as if struck.

“It really pity you can’t come,” Chloe drawled. Her inner voice, “In addition to forgetting to RSVP, you must have forgotten that Marinette’s knows Jagged Stone and Clara Nightingale and a bunch of other celebrities; all of which are going to be at the party.”

“They’re having loads of fun here,” Adrien said brightly. “The party looks great.”

His inner voice was a lot colder, “I told them! I told Marinette, Chloe, and Nathaniel every time you had this party, and every other party, a picnic, a guy’s night, a girl’s night, anything. I told them Alya was the one who got Bustier to not let them on the class trips. Why did you think I never showed up to any events? They’re my friend I showed them the group texts where you all did nothing but insult Marinette. You were bad friends. You trusted a perfect stranger over freaking Mariette Dupain-Cheng. That’s why I stopped returning your texts, Nino! Why I stopped returning all of your texts! We’re not friends anymore.”

Mouths dropped. To his credit, Adrien let his ground and just sent a cold glare to his classmates.

“Mom saw the texts, Juleka,” Luka shook his head. “She’s disappointed in you.” His inner voice, “So am I. I couldn’t believe it at first. How could my own sister be so cruel? So vile. I know Lila didn’t get into your head. But I think feared did. You were scared these idiots in your class would turn on you too. You knew it was wrong treating Marinette the way you did but you did it anyway. I don’t recognize you anymore. I don’t even want to look at you right now.”

Silent tears slipped down Juleka’s cheeks. Rose did her best to comfort the other girl.

“We should go,” Nathaniel told his friends. “There’s nothing for us here.” His inner voice, “Honestly you guys ditching us was the best thing that could ever happen. I have best friends now. Chloe, Adrien, and Marinette are literally the freaking best. I told them how much I liked Marc, and they listened. Chloe actually ended up locking in a supply closest but it all worked out. We’re dating now! I only got a little claustrophobic too.”

“You locked them in a closest?” Marinette pinched her nose. “That wasn’t the plan. It’s kidnapping.”

Marinette’s inner monologue, “I’m not going to jail for you! Oh who am I kidding? Of course I’d go to jail for you. Better be for something cool.”

“It will be,” Chloe preened. Her inner voice, “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. I’d pick you over all high-end couture in the world.”

“I’m not bailing you out for less than a felony,” Adrien chimed in with a smile. His inner voice, “Chances are I’m going to be right next to you.”

Marinette rolled her eyes, “Nathaniel’s right. We have to get ready for our trip. And my party.” She said. Her inner voice. “Thank you Alya for getting pushover Bustier to remove us from the class trip. Now while you guys are headed to the amusement park. We’re going to Metropolis, and Gotham, and New York City. We’re going on the best trip of our entire life while you guys watch Kim puke up fifty chili dogs… Again.”

Still the class was too scared to speak. Apart from Lila who glared angrily, “Oh please, like your birthday party will be any good?”

The five looked at her and the class with smirks.

“Oh course not,” They chimed together. “It’ll be a small get together.”

“If you call a thousand people small,” Adrien’s inner voice said. “I still can’t believe Marinette has so many friends. People are coming from all over the world for her birthday. Prince Ali’s going. My dad’s going! And he barely remembered my birthday this year. Like what the fuck! How did Marinette become the favorite child? Fine, though, I stole her parents. Also her room.”

Marinette side-eyed him. She knew had been finding more and more of Adrien’s stuff in her room. But she thought she was imagining things. Chloe did the same. Then the top bunk was always made. Again, she let it go. He slept over a lot. Chloe did too. Then he took over a drawer or two for some of this things. Again, not surprising. Chloe did the same; except she took over half of Marinette’s closet. Sometimes she’d come home and he’d be hanging out in her room playing video games. It was fine. Chloe tended to do the same; except for it was laying on Marinette’s bed on her phone.

…Wait, what?

“Jagged Stone performing for his favorite niece Marinette,” Chloe inner voice sang. “Clara Nightingale’s performing. Luka’s singing. They both invited all the celebrities they knew. MDC’s party. Did you hear about that?” The class gasped in shock. “It’s trending literally everywhere. Marinette Dupain Cheng’s party. It’s practically a red carpet event now. By the way Adrien, Sabine and Tom like me best.”

Again, Marinette had to side-eye her friends. Did they move in when she wasn’t looking? How did they move in? When did they move in? For god’s sake’ yesterday, she caught Chloe working behind the register while Marinette’s parents worked in back. She caught her dad teaching Adrien how to bake cookies and croissants.

“Peter Parker’s going,” Luka’s inner voice added on. “Marinette and him met each other at camp. And where Peter Parker goes, his parents follow. His parents: Tony Stark and Steve Roger ring any bells. And if Iron Man and Captain America’s going, the rest of the Avengers follow. They all RSVP’d.”

“Harry Styles,” Nathaniel’s inner voice repeated like six times. “If I wasn’t dating Marc, I’d go for it. Like, you have no idea; how much I’d go for it. Marc’s concerned. …He should be.”

Marinette smiled as her inner voice spoke what she was always too nice to say, “You were terrible friends. You turned against me for basically no reason. You threw me away. You followed Lila Rossi, the world’s biggest liar, because she told you grand stories and promised you things and opportunities. I’m happy you’re not going to my birthday party. Because you’re going to miss the chance to meet all those celebrities Lila lied about knowing. The chance to talk shop and create connections with the rich and the famous and be famous yourselves; the real reasons you ditched me. Most of the guests don’t know. But that’s fine because I’ll have real friends at the party; and you won’t be among them. Because you’re not real friend. You’re mindless, gullible sheep. …And Adrien, Chloe, I swear to the all gods, if you think you can just take over my room, you got another thing coming!!”

Both blonds didn’t bother to even pretend to look remotely shamed or scared. They just smirked.

It was at that moment, the Akuma two-faced came crashing into the party. All the documents, those in the class and not, scattered off screaming. The five took that opportunity to transform.

Ladybug, Chat Noir, Queen Bee, Viperion, and Renard Rouge came swinging to the scene.

Alya couldn’t believe her eyes. She had been replaced. How could Ladybug just replace her? She didn’t even have the guts to tell Alya!

Fury overcame her, “Ladybug!” The glasses-wearing screamed. Her inner voice, “Look at me. How could you do this? Why?”

Ladybug looked at her teammates. They nodded her a: Go for it. Ladybug swung over the the reporter. “What, Alya?” Her inner voice, “Why are you bothering me now?”

“You replaced me,” Alya stomped her foot. “I’m the fox hero. Not that poser.” Her inner voice, “I’m a much better hero than he’ll ever be. I should’ve been made permanent. I should’ve been made an official partner of you and Chat Noir.”

Ladybug glared, “You posted lies on your blog. You never fact checked. And my sources told me you frequently took part in bullying of three students.” Her inner voice, “You’re a bad journalist. Why did you think I stopped giving you interviews? All those lies you post from Lila Rossi about her, about me. You never even bothered to research anything. Then you ice’d out Marinette; the sole reason I even bothered to give you a chance. You and your classmates really hurt her and the other students. You were mean bullies. And you’re unworthy of being a hero.”

Alya froze. “But, I, it’s not fair!” She cried. “I didn’t know Lila wasn’t telling the truth.” Her inner voice “Crap! I forgot you knew Marinette. She probably told you everything. Ugh, why does she always have to be right all the time? It’s so annoying. At least Lila was fun. Besides, Marinette never even bothered to offer let me meet any of her celebrity friends. Or even mentioned she knew them And that’s so not cool. What kind of girl does that to her bestie? If Marinette had just told me she knew them, I’d have never believed Lila.”

Ladybug just stared at Alya in disgust, “We’re done Miss Césaire.” Her inner voice, “Forever.” Then she was gone.

When the Akuma was defeated, and Ladybug put everything back to the way it was. The students didn’t know what to say or do. Lila had taken the time to vanish form the party. The five continued they stroll through the park. Unfortunately, they had to walk past the class party again.

“Hey!” Nino called. “You guys can come join us if you want.”

“We’re really sorry,” Rose yelled.

Juleka didn’t say anything just looked at her older brother with pitiful eyes.

Alya rushed over, followed by the other students. “Girl, you were so right about Lila. She’s such a liar.” The classmates nodded. “I’m your bestie. I should’ve never forgot to RSVP for your party. If it’s not too late, I’d love to go. Maybe we can even join you on your trip overseas. I’d love to go the Daily Planet.”

“Yeah, me too!” Nino grinned.

“Count me,” Alix cheered and high-fived Kim.

Marinette looked them up and down, “It’s too late. Far too late,” She told them. “To go to my party, to go on the trip, to get back into my good graces, to be friends again. We’re not friends. And we never will be again. None of you be celebrating my birthday with me.” She gave them a cold smirk. “Wolves don’t party with sheep.”

#ml fic #ml salt #class salt #marinette dupen chang #Marinette deserves better #adrien agreste #chloe bourgeois #alya salt

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everybodyscupoftea · 4 years ago

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something out of a disney movie

sigma chi jj x reader

leading up to winter formal and a glimpse at the weekend ahead

finished school today :) kinda drunk at the moment so there’s that

(warnings: cursing, same editing as usual)

You worked on the cooler for so long after JJ asked you to his frat’s Winter Formal. From YouTube videos to Google searches to social media groups, you’d looked through it all trying to come up with ideas.

Sarah, who was working on John B’s at the same time, offered to do it with you. The two of you holed up in her apartment working together when you finally decided a proper theme. “What about the Outer Banks?” you asked Sarah.

She hummed, “Like what do you mean?”

“Stuff he likes to do that we’ve done together, surfing and fishing, some of his favorite restaurants. That kind of vibe.”

“That’s pretty personal, but I like it since you guys are actually dating.”

You smiled, excited, “Me too. Okay, let’s do this.”

After the cooler was solved, you realized you needed a dress. Sarah stepped in yet again to take you to a boutique she really liked. The two of you were browsing happily, a glass of champagne handed to you at the door.

Maybe that should’ve been a sign of how expensive everything in the store was going to be, but you didn’t process that until you’d pulled a few to try on and accidentally flipped a price tag over.

Choking on your sip, you exclaimed, “$250 holy fuck!”

Sarah wandered over, “What’s up?”

“This is so expensive. Dude, I’m not sure I can justify this.”

She waved your concerns away, “Don’t worry, I’ll sugar daddy you.”

Part of you, a big part of you, wanted to say no, you didn’t need charity. But you figured eventually, through coffee and food, you could pay her back.

“I-” you paused, “are you absolutely sure? I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“I get discounts here, no worries! Pick out the dress that you love, no looking at price.”

So you did. It was really cute, and both Sarah and the lady working really hyped you up about it, of course you had to get it after that. Sarah sent JJ a picture of the color so he could match, but told him he couldn’t see it until the day of.

When he begged, she sent back its so pretty maybank. be patient

“Okay,” you told JJ stepping into his room, “I have the cooler outside the door with the alcohol if you want to look now.”

JJ stood up from where he was laying on the bed excitedly, “I wanna see it.”

You held your hand out and he took it, walking outside the door with him. He looked down at it and smiled. Crossing your arms in front of you after he dropped your hand to turn it around, you asked, “What do you think?”

“It’s fantastic.”

“Yeah? You like it?”

“Of course! I mean I’d like anything because it was from you and I’m a fan of everything you do.”

Your cheeks heated up, “Sap.”

“Only for you.”

“I wasn’t sure what alcohol you wanted so I grabbed some vodka and tequila. Plus some White Claw for either mixing or pre-game. Figured we could pick up some mixers on the way out.”

“Sounds great to me,” he bent down to press a kiss to your forehead, “I’m so excited for this.”

“I am too,” you told him honestly, “when do we leave?”

“Few hours. Figure it won’t be too long a drive, and we won’t have to leave super early. You got your bag in the car?”

“I do.”

“Sweet. Do you want to watch a movie?”

“Absolutely.”

JJ laid back down on the bed, giving you room to crawl in next to him and started the Grinch movie. About 30 minutes after it started, his head snapped over to face you, “How’d you get the alcohol Miss Underaged?”

“Sarah helped with that. Not sure how she did it, but I got her a list and Venmoed her my share.”

“The two of you did a lot together for this, huh?”

“Well it is a first for both of us, so of course we did.”

JJ shook his head, “Should’ve known y’all would end up decent friends.”

The drive to Charleston was short, and JJ led the two of you to check into your hotel room. It was a fairly basic room, and he immediately disappeared to the bathroom to start getting ready. All you had left to do was put on your dress.

“Let’s try to not be late, yeah J?”

“Too late at least. You’re never on time, hon.”

You scoffed, “Maybe this is me turning over a new leaf.”

He stuck his head out the room to give you an incredulous look, “No.”

“I’ll prove you wrong for sure.”

“Bet I’ll finish getting ready before you do even though you’re already mostly ready.”

Your jaw tightened, but you weren’t one to back down from a challenge, “Bet.”

You weren’t entirely sure how ready JJ was, only that if you wanted to be first, you needed to start getting your dress on. The one thing you had going for you was that he struggled tying a tie and he’d have to figure that out before he could be finished.

JJ stepped out of the bathroom a few minutes later, tightening his belt, and you stood up, already in your dress with a smirk on your face, “I win.”

He rolled his eyes, “Win what?”

“We bet but since we don’t normally bet money, you have to bring me drinks all night.”

“It’s my formal.”

“Yeah, it’s still your formal, but you have the added responsibility of keeping my cup full. I’d do the same for you if you were better at getting dressed.”

“Dude,” JJ shook his head, “I’ll give you this one, but I’ll get you next year.”

“Sure,” you smirked.

And then it was like JJ processed that you were in the dress because his jaw dropped and he let out a low whistle, “Damn.”

“What do you think?”

“You look,” he paused, “incredible, beautiful, stunning, all the good adjectives.”

Shaking your head, you smiled, “Thanks, J.”

“I’m gonna have the prettiest date there tonight.”

“Now that’s an exaggeration,” you told him, ears warming under the attention.

“I never exaggerate.”

You were both late. The party was in full swing when the two of you finally got downstairs, and JJ kept his arm around your waist tightly the whole time the two of you walked around. There was a small buffet set up that the two of you ate a little bit from, but JJ took you straight to the alcohol for your first cups.

It was loud and dark in the hotel ballroom, barely lit by candles scattered all over the room like out of some sort of Disney movie, and you couldn’t see much, but JJ found Pope and John B fairly quickly. Sarah and Pope’s date were both there, and you felt relieved, finally being with someone you knew.

“Wow,” Sarah called out when she saw you, “worth every penny.”

You did a little twirl, “Looks pretty good,” you admitted.

“Pretty,” JJ scoffed, “try very or incredibly.”

Sarah snorted, “Hype man JJ. I’m glad your tie is the right color to match.”

“Hype man?” John B interrupted, “more like simp.”

“I paid attention,” he defended, “and you fuck off.”

“This time,” you muttered. JJ playfully poked your nose, “Slandering my name there sweetheart.”

“I’d never,” you told him, placing a hand over your heart.

In lieu of an answer, JJ pulled you out on the dance floor. You smiled, recognizing his deflection tactic, but let it happen.

He twirled you around twice, and you laughed when he almost stepped on your toes.

“Careful bud,” you told him, “Trying to knock me out?”

“By stepping on your toes? No.”

“Trying to get out of dancing then?”

He smiled softly, “With you? Never.”

You couldn’t help but kiss him at his sappy words, excited for the long weekend ahead.

for day 15 of @obxmermaid‘s holiday challenge: winter formal

#sigma chi!jj #jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank x you #jj maybank fic #frat!jj #outer banks #outer banks fic #obxmermaidholiday

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chroniclesofawkwardness · 6 years ago

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Bleeders (Them Shoes)

We’re not supposed to talk openly about going to the bathroom. It’s such a sensitive subject that children have their own lexicon for describing two things every single person on the planet does (number one or number two). Even a well-known producer of toilet paper has danced around the subject by composing a song about a booty smile in an ad for their ultra-soft product. Hell, even adults sometimes get caught using euphemisms like taking a dump, dropping a duce, or recycling water. The bathroom is supposed to be one of the last vestiges of privacy in a world where privacy is almost certainly dead. Personally, I tend to be very mission-oriented in the bathroom; I’m not much of a conversationalist. Unless somebody walks in on me mid-stream, I can usually get in and out of the water closet without too much trouble. That being said, sometimes confrontation is inevitable.

I used to love working nights. More money. Fewer people. No need to set an alarm in the morning. You might say I had a higher expectation of privacy. Still, this expectation was shattered one Friday night several months ago, when I visited the same bathroom I always used during my last break before the end of my shift. We humans are nothing if not creatures of habit.

There was no way for me to avoid him. The middle-aged man was standing directly in front of the trash can that was just inside the door. I was already in mission-mode. It wasn’t critical, but I still had to pee, so I wasn’t in the mood for exchanging pleasantries.

I read in a book one time that if you think someone is planning on attacking you, it’s a good idea to attempt to throw them off by asking an innocuous question such as, “What time is it?” The hope is that they’ll be so startled that they won’t carry out whatever devious plot had been dancing in their head. For a split second, I thought about asking this man that question, but I remembered I was wearing a watch. All I could manage was a weak, “How’s it going?”

I got an answer I neither expected nor wanted:

Man, I blew my nose and it just started bleeding.

Trying to contain my shock, I quickly thought of another innocuous question to attempt to defuse the situation:

Um… Do you need medical attention? I can call security.

I knew some people got really bad nosebleeds. I’d woken up with a few as a kid, so the last thing I wanted was another just-a-flesh-wound situation from Monty Python unfolding right there on the blue and white tile floor. In response, the man said something else that caught me totally by surprise:

No. It’s okay. It happens to all of us. Everyone in my family; we’re all bleeders.

He just walked away.

I felt an aneurysm coming on, what comedian Lewis Black said you might experience upon hearing the words, “If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.” Fortunately, before the room started spinning, I came to my senses and remembered that I had to get back to work. My break should only last fifteen minutes. I chalked the encounter up to the randomness that I seem to attract on a regular basis and thought that was the end of the story.

I was wrong.

Fast forward about two months to approximately 9:00 P.M. on a Friday night in the dead of winter. You might wonder why I chose to go to the same bathroom again. I wouldn’t say the release was as cathartic as the one A Rumor of War author Phillip Caputo describes upon returning to Saigon, but like Caputo, I refused to let myself be defined by a bad experience. I went back to that bathroom because I had to. I had to know that I’d be okay, that I could experience my own literal release without the soundtrack of a stranger’s medical history to keep me company or make me sick to my stomach.

I was standing at the sink washing my hands that night when who should appear in the bathroom but the man with the spontaneously bleeding nose. This time, his problem was at the other end. I barely had time to think before he launched into another bodily proclamation:

If I were you, I’d get out of here. Sorry for oversharing… It’s all this fiber.

Okay.

I went back to my desk wondering why I hadn’t just waited until I’d made it home to use the bathroom. There’s just something about the comfort of one’s home bowl. The freedom from judgment and the freedom of movement it affords are unmatched. I can stand as close to, or as far away from the toilet as I want, and I never have to hold it in, acting like everything is fine, when in reality I’m about to explode. What’s more, I certainly have more privacy than in a building with over ten thousand employees, and a housekeeping staff that clearly doesn’t give a fuck who they walk in on when they start their nightly tasks of cleaning toilets, occasionally emptying trash cans, and pretending to vacuum floors.

I haven’t seen the man with the penchant for nosebleeds and fiber consumption since the last of these two incidents, though I think of him whenever I spot a bottle of Metamucil on the shelf at my Kroger pharmacy.

Wherever he is, I hope he got the help he needed and left me out of it.

II.

I don’t know why, but I’ve always had trouble getting shoes on and off my right foot. I could use a shoehorn, but I wonder if I’m too old to learn a new trick. When I was very young, I had a pair of braces for my legs, much like the ones a young Forrest Gump wore when he taught a young Elvis how to dance.

Unlike Forrest, if I’m going somewhere, I’m usually walking. Thanks to my pedestrian existence, I go through shoes pretty quickly, but I don’t always replace them in a timely manner when holes appear, or rocks get stuck in them. I’ve never been a big fan of spending money on myself unless it’s absolutely necessary, but this strategy sometimes comes back to bite me in the ass. A wholesale warehouse like Costco could be just the place to support my feet without breaking my bank. If I could be strong enough not lead myself into temptations all around, and wise enough to find my way without having to Hansel and Gretel that shit back to the entrance.

Until recently, it had been years since I’d visited Costco. I hadn’t had a membership, so my only exposure to the Costco experience was in their bakery when a friend of mine and I went there to pick up a cake for a co-worker who was transferring to another department. My friend wasn’t happy with me during and after our trip because he was convinced I’d blown his chance to stalk the head coach of the local National Hockey League franchise throughout the store. All because I couldn’t find a pen to fill out the order form for the cake.

I know it was him. The team is off tonight. We could’ve followed him around and gotten autographs, but SOMEBODY couldn’t find a pen. This is all your fault.

How can you be sure? All we could see was the back of the man’s head. Besides, if it was, the last thing he needs is a bunch of grown-ass, wannabe-Canucks fawning over him like teenage girls over Justin Bieber. Let’s just move on. I’m sure finding 500 ft. of aluminum foil or a 128 oz. jar of mayonnaise on sale will cheer you up.

I think my friend is still salty about the incident.

Anyway, my mom had been talking up Costco for weeks prior to our visit. You’d think we were going to a place that held the promise of the Disneyworld of my youth, or a Barry Manilow concert of hers. It was so beautiful, she’d say, so full of the spoils of hollow, American excess (You won’t have to buy paper towels for six months. Isn’t that just wonderful?) that nothing could reverse the magnetic attraction to it that its patrons would naturally feel. Once we’d made our way through the massive sliding doors of this consumerist-culture theme park, a little old lady stopped us at the entrance and asked to see the membership cards we didn’t have. We could’ve easily overpowered her and run amok up and down the aisles, but we decided to play by the rules like blissful, ignorant cattle being led to slaughter, and stand in line for proof that we belonged.

Maybe the cattle secretly knew their lives would never be the same after they slipped inside the slaughterhouse. Maybe we knew our lives would change forever after we slipped inside Costco. We were just too excited about the possibility of buying whole peaches (whole fucking peaches!) in jars to care. I wish I’d asked the little old lady to take off her politeness mask so I could see who she really was. I feel the same way about Disney characters. What I wouldn’t give to be in the break room at Disneyworld on a Tuesday afternoon in the heat of July. I’d pay to see Mickey and Minnie Mouse without their costume heads, smoking cigarettes, carelessly farting, and dropping f-bombs like normal human beings. That’s a Disney fantasy I could buy into.

I first saw them after I’d selected ninety-six pencils for four dollars, and forty-four bags of popcorn for nine. Snow tracks. They were pieces of rubber speckled with spikes that remind you of the bottoms of golf shoes. They were supposed to provide enhanced traction on snow and ice. I hadn’t yet bought myself a pair of winter boots this season, so I needed something to combat the unpredictable Ohio weather in the meantime. The snow tracks cost about five dollars and seemed they’d be a good fit until my boots came in the mail. I should’ve paid more attention to the actual fit. The package said they were for shoe sizes 3.5 to 7.5. I wear a size 8. Close enough, I thought.

I was wrong (again).

When I got the pencils, popcorn, and snow tracks home, I ripped the snow tracks from their packaging like a kid opening presents on Christmas morning. I was convinced I’d found an inexpensive, long-lasting solution to a transportation problem I’ve faced every winter. If cars could have snow tires, the snow tracks were supposed to be my pedestrian equivalent, my way of telling Mother Nature to suck it.

III.

Sex.

Now that I have your attention, keep reading.

I’m hardly the first person to point out that we live in the age of toxicity. Toxic femininity. Toxic masculinity. If you boy into those ideas, you’d have to behave as if you were walking on eggshells everywhere you went. When you’d go about your daily life, you’d have to be careful. In many scenarios standards (whatever those are) of conduct, language, and presentation (to name a few) have gradually shifted from what a reasonable person would consider acceptable, to what the most sensitive among us can tolerate. We’ve been invited to neuter ourselves because someone, somewhere might be offended by something we say or do. God help us if we were cross that arbitrary, ever-shifting line into the offensive. Our lives could easily be ripped to shreds on social media, or dissected for all to see in the court of public opinion without so much as a word spoken in our defense.

What does supposed gender toxicity have to do with bleeding noses, impromptu descriptions of impending bowel movements, shoes, Costco, and sex?

Keep reading.

The first day I wore the snow tracks to work, they were unnecessary. But I wanted to try them out before the weather got nasty. After I put them on and started walking somewhere other than the carpeted floor of my apartment, I felt like a dog or cat that seriously needed its nails clipped. I felt like I could tip over at any moment. You could even say the clickety-klack sound the snow tracks made as I walked was reminiscent of a newborn pony taking its first steps. In a way, I was learning to walk all over again. I probably looked as awkward if not more so than a newborn pony, whose difficulty with steps could be easily explained, if not expected. Mine, on the other hand, was caused by an invention so questionable it belonged on a Saturday afternoon infomercial (the playground of the gullible) or in heavy rotation on QVC (the playground of the elderly).

I was really wobbling by the time I got to work. I had to walk on a tile floor until I got to the set of stairs that meant I was mere feet away from the relative stability of carpeting. When I made it to the stairs without tipping over, I felt triumphant in my badassery. Not only had I told Mother Nature what she could go do to herself, I’d subjugated my favorite flight of stairs. For the briefest of moments, there was nothing I couldn’t do.

Each morning, like clockwork, I’d feed my coffee addiction by making the short trek down the hall to one of the break rooms on my floor. I went from being off-balance on the tile to feeling like my feet were stuck in quicksand on the carpet. I felt like Marv (Daniel Stern) in Home Alone as he got his feet repeatedly stuck in what looked like tar as he trudged up the steps into what he hoped would be a final confrontation with Kevin McCallister. I didn’t have traction where I needed it and had too much where I didn’t. I got my coffee just fine, but noticed a problem when I got back to my desk.

Fuck. One of the snow tracks came off one of my shoes. Now I’ve gotta Hansel and Gretel that shit back to the break room, and hope no one picked it up. In that case, I’d have only one, which won’t do me much good since I’ve got two shoes.

This was my first indication that the masculine drive I’d displayed by trying to fit something on the bottom of my shoe that wasn’t designed to fit there may have been misdirected. Fortunately, the solitary snow track was right where it had fallen off, twisted and sad, outside the entrance to the break room. I picked it up and carried it back to my desk. I was relieved, yet slightly terrified at not knowing who among my thousands of colleagues had seen what, or when.

Whole again, I decided to remove the snow track from my other shoe, lock them in one of my desk drawers, and thank my lucky stars that a hyper-sensitive person hadn’t found it. If they had, so went my worst nightmare, they could’ve easily mistaken it for a medieval torture device, a sex toy, or both. This could have triggered a massive HR manhunt. I was the only person I’d ever seen wearing snow tracks so it wouldn’t take security too long to figure out whose it was. I mean, seriously, how often do you really look at a man’s shoes? Even though I had the snow tracks under lock and key, I’d already been peacocking to my co-workers about conquering Mother Nature that morning. I assumed one of them would cave, and point the finger at me as soon as one of our woke-up-like-this, my-uniform-is-three-sizes-too-big security guards applied even the tiniest bit of investigative pressure.

I didn’t think about the snow tracks until I could feel safe trying to put them on again, shortly after 5:30 PM that evening. I couldn’t risk being seen in the workplace wearing socks without shoes, so I decided to visit the same bathroom where I’d encountered Mr. Nosebleed, aka The Kellogg’s Cracklin’ Oat Bran Man. I refused to let him get the best of me, even if the competition between us was playing out exclusively in my head. I know now that should’ve just risked being accosted by an everything-is-a-trigger-warning coworker by sitting out in the open to take my shoes off and attach the snow tracks to them. Against the better angels of my nature, I opted for the blue and white tile of old familiar. For the first time in this nearly seven-year stint with my employer, I went into a bathroom stall. I chose one that was handicapable accessible at that because I knew I’d need a fair amount of room to maneuver.

If one’s home bowl provides an unparalleled level of comfort, I don’t know why I expected the toilet in this unfamiliar, reasonably public bathroom to have a lid. As far as I knew, I’d taken a dump in a public toilet but once in my entire life. Avoiding stalls in public bathrooms had become one of my personal rules after seeing far too many movies and television shows where the hero inconveniently finds himself seconds away from a for-a-good time-call-Charlie invitation scrawled in expectant Sharpie on one of the stall walls. The exception that disproved my rule was only brought about by the extenuating circumstance of my having been on a plane for 8+ hours, trying desperately not to pass gas in a closed cabin full of strangers and recycled air. When the time came for me to finally let loose, it was dark. My mission-oriented self couldn’t see much in 2011, so 2019 me had no earthly idea what to expect from the moment the stall door slammed home.

I sat on the toilet to take off my shoes, only to be betrayed yet again by my right foot. I had to bend and contort my body into several unnatural positions just to take off my right shoe. Even if I’d returned to the practice of yoga as I’ve been telling myself to do for years, it wouldn’t have done any good. By the time I managed to pry my foot free, I was bent over on the toilet seat, face red, and gasping for air as if I’d just been through a CrossFit workout. Extracting my foot from my left shoe wasn’t any easier. I was thankful I hadn’t fallen in the toilet the first time, and I decided not to risk doing so again. I sat on the floor of the stall among crumpled up toilet seat covers with my back against a wall. I succeeded in removing my left shoe, but it was a Pyrrhic victory that left me sucking air again five minutes later.

I thought the hard part was over, but I soon realized that I hadn’t really accomplished anything. I still had to get the snow tracks on my shoes. I decided to try putting the snow track on my left shoe first since I always put my left shoe on first anyway. I didn’t have nearly as much trouble as I’d anticipated. This only served to imbue me with a false sense of confidence as I entered the battle on my right side. Standing now, in stockinged feet, I twisted and pulled that infernal rubber contraption every way I knew how. It wasn’t long before the confrontation reached a tipping point. In the heat of the moment, I looked down at my shoe and saw that the toe was bent in in a position from which it might never recover.

Uh oh.

While admiring the shoe’s brush with death, I got so caught up in wondering how the hell I hadn’t destroyed it that I forgot to release the tension on the snow track caused by my desperate attempts to fit it over the bottom. Consequences be dammed, I kept pulling, and sure enough the shoe went flying out of my hand. I let out a simultaneous:

dammit!

as it flipped like a coin through the air. Even the staunch atheist in me prayed it wouldn’t land outside the stall. If someone had walked in to find my solitary shoe on the floor, I’d have had some serious explaining to do. Fortunately, it came to rest within the stall, right in the space between the floor and the bottom of one of the walls. It would’ve been easily visible to anyone who happened by. I scrambled to pick it up, and somehow managed to finally put the snow track on without losing a shoe, or an eye, in the process. Another Pyrrhic victory in hand, I did the clickety-klack catlike walk out of the building and homeward, praying I wouldn’t tip over like a little teapot along the way.

IV.

Education.

Not many things in this world make me truly happy. Whatever I’m doing, I’m often consumed by the notion that I’m wasting my time, and I should be doing something else. One exception is volunteering. I like to think that whenever I get out to give back to the community, I’m spending my time wisely, that my actions make even the smallest difference in someone’s day. Those feelings, those moments, are what make life worth living. That’s why I jumped at the chance to volunteer at a local shelter for youth in crisis.

I’d heard snow was in the forecast for that Saturday, so I put the snow tracks on my shoes, and called for a Lyft to take me where I needed to go. Upon arriving, my driver insisted that I get in the back seat. I complied. He said he was familiar with where I was going, and I babbled on about why I enjoy volunteering so much. I’ve given the same speech to two dozen or more Lyft and Uber drivers over the years. I don’t always mean to say the same things over and over, but at this point, I’ve got a streak going.

As we pulled up to the shelter, my driver said something that caught me by surprise:

God bless you and your ministry.

Okay.

I don’t know why he thought I was religious, but I decided it wasn’t worth fighting about since so few things in this world really are. As I got out of his car and stepped onto the sidewalk, I felt the same naked feeling I had when walking back to my desk with a coffee a few days before. I looked down at my feet, and instantly knew what was missing:

Shit! My snow tracks came off again. They’re in the back of a stranger’s car, and he’s pulling away from the curb…

I waved to the driver in a half-hearted attempt to get his attention. He probably thought I was waving goodbye, so he didn’t stop. I was dejected over the loss of my spikey companions, but I had a job to do. Need knows no season, after all. As the leader of our group for this particular event, I was the first to arrive. I asked our host to tell me more about the facility. Turns out, it’s a shelter where kids can go when their parents may have kicked them out of their homes, ripped up their birth certificates, or under any number of undesirable circumstances. Typically teenagers, the kids there are in tough spots. I remember hating life as a teenager, but I was incredibly fortunate to never lose my home or my support system. I’ll never forget that. How could I complain about losing a set of bougie spikes I’d bought at a club where I was a member in the back of a Lyft that I paid to ride in by just tapping on my smartphone? The short answer is, I couldn’t.

But that doesn’t mean shit couldn’t still get awkward.

If I’m mission-oriented in the bathroom, I’m also a mission-oriented volunteer. I was so excited to get started that I didn’t even wait for more people to show up. I started attacking the living room almost immediately. I found several intermingled decks of cards and resolved to make each one whole again. After working my way through a few decks, I made my way to an end table in search of rogue Kings and Queens. The table had so many board games on it that I almost didn’t see the circular object on the floor beneath it. I thought it was a fallen game piece at first. I reasoned that if decks could lose their cards, games could lose their pieces. No matter how hard I try, a part of me will always be a leave-it-better than-you-found-it Eagle Scout, so I bent down to pick up the fallen piece. But it wasn’t a game piece at all.

It was a used condom.

I jerked my hand away as if I’d touched a hot stove, but I quickly realized that the damage had already been done. In one motion, I picked it up and threw it in the closest trash can. Inside, I was disgusted. Outside, I knew I had to remain emotionally unmoved. How could I expect a house full of teenagers and my fellow volunteers to keep their cool if I couldn’t? The short answer is, I couldn’t.

As the color of my face slowly returned to normal, I returned to my quest for prodigal cards. Along the way, I picked up a canister of Lysol and a rag and started disinfecting. In the midst of organizing the cards and board games, I came across at least five different remotes that had either been left to their own devices on the end table, or fallen between the cushions of the couch next to it. I picked up a random remote to examine it; I couldn’t believe it had just one button. In that instant, I felt technology had come full circle. I simultaneously felt longing for the days of A, B, Select, Start, and a directional pad on a Nintendo controller from the 80s, and gratitude that I wasn’t overwhelmed by the option paralysis of my first and only X-Box controller from the early 2000s.

Somehow, in the midst of my button daydreams, I managed to turn on the television. I panicked, though not as intensely as before.

Great. This is the last thing we need… If the volunteer coordinator catches us with the TV on, we’re screwed. I don’t want anyone thinking we were being lazy, even if turning on the TV was an accident.

I looked out the window through the falling snow for signs of any important-looking adults. Once satisfied there were none on the horizon, I decided to turn off the TV with the same one-button remote I’d used to accidentally turn it on. I messed around with the button for a few seconds, and though I couldn’t get the TV to turn off, I did manage to jack the volume up to 60. To make matters worse, Netflix soon followed with its unmistakable Dum-Dum opening sound.

Fuck me. It’s bad enough that I turned the TV on, but now it sounds like I’m making myself at home surrounded by kids who don’t have one. I’ve already seen at least one Children’s Services worker in the house today to check on one of the kids. If I don’t turn off this damn TV right now, this could get ugly. No one wants to hear Maude Flanders scream “Won’t someone please think of the children” in a place where they’re supposed to be safe.

Since I couldn’t get the TV to turn off, or at least make a selection in time, Netflix did what Netflix does, and started playing the trailer of its featured show. As luck would have it, the feature that Saturday was Sex Education. I’d seen the trailer myself that morning, at home. But thinking of the hormonally-charged residents of the house, and my all-too-recent close call with a condom, I considered seeing it here to be the mother of all ironies. It’s a show about teenagers’ discovery of their sexuality, exacerbated by the fact that one of the teens’ mothers is a sex therapist. I knew this, of course, but I wasn’t horrified until the therapist spoke the trailer’s first words, to her son, which sent the following blaring throughout the house at volume level 60 in a British accent.

I'VE NOTICED YOU’RE PRETENDING TO MASTURBATE, AND I WAS WONDERING IF YOU WANTED TO TALK ABOUT IT.

As she (unintentionally) bellowed that call to puberty to anyone within earshot, my entire time as a volunteer flashed before my eyes. Everything from my first event sorting food at the Homeless Families Foundation, to having an Uber driver tell me his GPS said I was in the middle of the highway, came washing over me. I was convinced that a hyper-sensitive adult, or some freshly-minted preteen who’d only recently embarked down the path of life’s most awkward phase, would ruin it all for me. I tried feverishly to turn the volume down as she spoke, but my fingers wouldn’t follow my commands. They just blindly grouped that stupid, singular button.

Shit…. Shit…. Shit….. No… No…. No…. Nooooooooo!!! We’re fucked now, for sure! They’ll never ask us to come back! Great job, Mr. Leader.

Somehow, after a minute that might as well have lasted three years, I managed to turn off the television. I looked outside at the intensifying snowfall, and remembered my snow tracks were long gone. I was pissed off for a second, but I remembered that all I needed to do was ask someone for a ride in real life instead of just tapping a button on my phone. It’s redundancies that save you.

I had some unexpectedly good (some might say bougie) French toast, coffee, and conversation at a place called The Crest after sprucing up the house and locking down the TV. At the conclusion of our meal, I called for a Lyft to take me home, and I managed not to fall in my own parking lot once I got there.

My winter boots came in the mail on January 14, 2019, twenty-six years to the day my dear uncle Dave died. I’m not sure where or when he is, and I miss him like crazy sometimes. But I like to think that if he watched my struggles against Mother Nature and Father Time that weekend, he was laughing his ass off.

That’s another fantasy I could buy into.

0 notes

crimsonblackrose · 5 years ago

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I’ve spent a lot of time waffling this year back and forth between traveling or not. On the one hand I’m heading home in March and I should be saving my money to help get me through until I find a job and have health insurance and try to figure out what it means to be an adult in America. (I’ve realized I’ve spent most of my independent adult life in South Korea and as well as most of my adult job experience in South Korea and it’s going to be a weird transition which I’ll discuss in some later post.)

A lot of that really concerns me, I’m leaving what is essentially financial stability and all these other things to go home to great unknowns and the idea of just staying in Korea and saving my money for a rainy day seems like the smart move. I also need to pack. I have 5 years worth of my adult life in South Korea that I need to go through. But maybe first I should watch “Tidying up with Marie Kondo?” (ah that’s procrastination at its finest right there)

But on the other hand I don’t know when I’ll be able to travel again after I’m in the States. It feels like I’m jumping feet first into cement and I’m not sure when I’ll be able to break free. I’m sure I’ll be able to travel within the continental United States, but branching outwards again seems like it’ll take awhile to work up to. And that’s what made me decide to go. The next step was where. I wanted to go to Hong Kong or New Zealand but both places seemed like it wasn’t the best time to go. And surprisingly France was fairly cheap for around when I could take vacation days. So I decided for the first time since moving to South Korea to leave Asia for a vacation and go, not to the States, but to Europe. I double checked a couple times that there weren’t any travel warnings and there were month old notices about the strikes but it seemed no one had updated those to say that things were unsafe. I downloaded Citymapper, purchased some travel wifi, and the Paris Pass, and prepped my plans which I then sent to my parents. Here’s the plan, edited a bit from what I sent my parents to be more accurately reflect my trip: Paris 2020.

A lot of my friends in South Korea are in a similar boat as me. A lot of them are planning to go home soon or are in the midst of moving, so many many of them are staying home this winter, or they’ve already made plans. I figured if I was going to go I had to go on my own.

I’ve traveled alone before. I’ve traveled all over Korea on my own, as well as Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan. I knew that one of my professors that took us to Prague would be in Paris around the same time so I made plans to meet up with her, but that was it. The other person I thought I knew in Paris actually wasn’t in Paris or even France at all. So I read some blogs and figured, as long as I looked like I knew what I’m doing, stayed busy, booked a hotel in a good area then I should’ve been fine. I also figured it’d be a good test run for moving back to the Chicago area. In Korea I can just leave my phone on a table and it’ll be there when I get back. There aren’t really pick pockets, so you can walk around with your bag open and more often than not be fine. There’s CCTV everywhere so if something happens you just have to pull footage, it deters a lot.

Even though it was technically going to be a 6 day trip it was actually only 3 full days in Paris. The cheapest trip I had an option for that I felt comfortable doing had an overnight layover in Osaka and I’d loose a day on my way back from Paris. So I tried to cram as much into those 3 days as possible. A lot changed from my original plan due to the days places were open, the changes in hours due to the strikes and my limited amount of time. I originally planned to spend my last day at Disney, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I tried finding all the unique Parisian Disney things online to get myself hyped up and make a list of goals, only to find almost nothing that didn’t require a reservation months in advance. I couldn’t find blog posts or Instagram posts raving the unique Disney Parisian foods or snacks or souvenirs like they do for Tokyo Disney and Disney Sea. So I scrapped my plans to go. Which with how exhausted I was by the time Monday rolled around was probably for the best.

I was in Paris in early January while the strikes were happening. This will probably get posted several months later at which point I hope they’ve been resolved. Public transportation was still accessible however it was very limited. Depending on the train, the services were drastically cut or not running at all. This meant buses were crammed pack full of people, especially during rush hour times in the morning and evening.

It made getting around really difficult but not impossible. A lot of people I talked to mentioned how due to the strikes; Uber and taxi’s had hiked up their prices. I didn’t use Uber or taxi’s to get around and instead relied heavily on the app: Citymapper. I tried using Google maps only once to try and get to Versailles and it suggested I take a metro line that wasn’t working that day, which I only realized after buying the tickets and making my way to an empty platform.

The one thing I would note about Citymapper is to double check everything. If you can, look up the address then copy and paste it into the search, or make sure the name of the place is correct and in French. Because in English we called Versailles the “Palace of Versailles”, but when I typed that into my map it sent me to the wrong place around Viroflay. It suggested I take the big out of town train down to Viroflay, transfer on a mini little local tram, and then walk the rest of the way to a green looking area that was not in-fact Versailles. (Which is what led me to Google mapping it and end up with tickets going for a line that wasn’t running.)

The little grey you-are-here symbol on the left with the clock is the actual Palace of Versailles known in French as Château de Versailles while the other one to the upper right is where Citymapper originally tried to send me. They’re a good 40 minutes away from each other, 50 minutes if you try to walk it. Thankfully I could take the bus but I wasn’t sure if I needed exact change, which I didn’t have. The machines only took coins or a card so I was concerned the bus would be the same. Which meant I also had to hike around to find somewhere where I could break a bill and get 1.90 euros in change to pay for the bus to Versailles. I did eventually make it but it was frustrating how much time I lost.

It was however, the only time Citymapper let me down. It was pretty accurate the rest of the time, though the bus back to the airport did not come nearly as often as it said it would but I can’t hardly fault the app for that one. I was in the right spot and I was very early so I wasn’t too upset.

Generally getting around you can get a train pass. They have card passes like most cities that you can tap to get into the station or on the bus. Or you can get a little paper card that you feed into the reader every time you get on or go up to a turnstile.

Sortie means exit. Follow the signs to get out of train stations or anywhere else you might be.

Because I paid for 3 days of the Paris Pass it meant that I got 3 days of public transit access between zones 1-3 which sadly did not include Versailles. It is possible, but expensive, to get a pass that includes more zones. It included practically everything else in downtown Paris that was working. For everything else I bought on board (the bus generally) with exact change. For the airport Roissy bus I purchased my ticket down to Opera at the information center in the airport and back to the airport from Opera directly from the bus driver at the bus stop. It was about 13.90 euros which is more than Citymapper quoted, but it might be cheaper if you have a pass.

For every other bus it was about 1.90 in coins which I always made sure I had exact, then would take the ticket they gave me and fed it into the feeder. No one scanned to get out or used the readers to leave the buses or trains so I now I just have a large pile of tickets.

In case the reader doesn’t work you have to show the ticket you are using to the bus driver. Because this occasionally happens you need to write your name on the pass and the dates it’ll be used.

Nom: last name prénom: first name

Other popular ways of getting around which Citymapper included locations of were scooters and bikes. It was really nice to see the Strike safe options as well as what my options were.

Usually what I did was a combination of a bus and walking, a lot of walking.

Citymapper also have some fun Easter eggs.

Depending on the location I could play a mini game where I tried to slingshot myself (not actually myself) to the destination. And there was a Cheshire cat that tended to move around the map.

Before I left for Paris I tried to look up ways to stay safe. A lot of them reassured that you could in fact, as a woman travel safely in Paris on your own you just needed to look like you knew where you were going, be careful of pick pockets and be extra careful at night. A lot of touristy and not so touristy places also warned to be aware of pick pockets, even a small English friendly cafe I went to had signs up everywhere warning people of pick pockets.

There are a couple scams I read up about. One was people trying who ask if you dropped a piece of jewelry and someone else will root around in your bag while you talk to the first person. Or they will try to sell you the jewelry. Another similar one is to hand you something or start drawing your picture or try to give you something and then demand money.

I didn’t run into any of these. Instead I ran into “Petition Pick Pocket” a lot. Usually someone would ask me

“Do you speak English?” and then would go into a spiel about how they were collecting signatures to help some cause or another. It was usually handicapped people. To which the first time this happened as I was walking away from the Eiffel Tower I responded: “I don’t live here.”

To which the woman responded that it was an international thing. To which I said again, “I don’t live here.” and quickly walked across the street with one of the men who was a vendor selling Eiffel Tower souvenirs near the area who had thankfully called out to me that I could cross since there wasn’t a sign. Super grateful to him for giving me an out to the situation.

This is a common scam that gets used a lot in different countries. I’ve run into it in Seoul, near the church in Myeongdong, I just hadn’t realized what it was at the time. In that case it sort of made sense due to the location as the woman wanted to gather signatures to do something about abortions. But again, it’s really strange that she’d pick a non-Korean person to gather a signature from. Just like the one’s in Paris it doesn’t make sense.

Why only ask English speakers? If you want change made for your petition and for any governmental official to actually care it has to be done by locals. Almost no government or political thing I know of is totally chill with you coming up with a list of signatures from random people who don’t live in the area and who aren’t citizens.

If you just need random signatures that aren’t locals you could just do it yourself with random different names and trying to write differently. You don’t actually need to petition. But the whole point of petitioning is to get support from locals, not tourists/visitors.

They don’t explain fully what it’s for. The idea though is for it to be something that you’d be a horrible person to turn away from. Helping poor babies or children who need assistance. Usually something that will earn you all the dirty looks if you refuse. But how do I know exactly how it would help? If it’s not explained well but in a rush of words how can I be sure I’m not being tricked like people commonly are when people suggest ending women’s suffrage (their right to vote but it sounds like they’re suffering so sometimes people get tricked). If you run into other organizations then they’re more than happy to talk your ear off if you’ll stand still long enough to listen. But these don’t.

So how is it a scam and not just things that don’t make sense logically? Generally there’s about two ways it can go. But the beginning will be the same. A person with a clipboard (in all cases I ran into it was a woman) will ask “Do you speak English?” and then ask for you to sign a petition of some kind. Either when they manage to foist the clipboard and pen into your hands to sign they’ll take the time to root around in your purse or bag while you can’t see it because you’re attention has been directed to the clipboard, or they’ll ask for a donation and try to shame you into giving something because it’s for a good cause. Either way if you run into them it’s best not to converse and just walk away as fast as you can or pop into a shop.

I’m super grateful for the guy near the Eiffel Tower who I got to walk with. But the absolutely worst time I had with them was waiting for the Roissy airport bus. I waited for maybe 20 minutes with a growing amount of people around me also waiting for the bus and they came in droves every couple of minutes. Because I looked like I was alone they came up to me at least 5 times within that twenty minute period specifically and stopped. Most of the time if I just shook my head and didn’t look at them they’d go away, but I had one who gave me the dirtiest look when I refused to talk to her after she’d tapped my shoulder. I couldn’t go anywhere, I needed to take the bus to the airport. So I just held my stuff close and tried to make sure nothing was accessible. They finally left me alone when another actual tourist asked me if I spoke English and was going to the airport and started telling me the awful time she’d had trying to find the airport bus.

It seemed like they were only targeting women who were on their own.

This of course doesn’t mean don’t talk to strangers who ask if you speak English. It does mean to have your guard up though, especially if they’ve got a clipboard. In my case outside of the bus stop waiting for the airport more often then not people were lost and needing directions. But because people are use to the “do you speak English” being a lead to getting pick pocketed a lot of people weren’t getting helped. One guy near the Eiffel Tower asked if I knew anywhere to buy a jacket nearby because on the coldest windiest morning he was out as if he’d packed for a business meeting somewhere tropical rather than France in winter, and we both realized there was nothing nearby except one tourist spot selling sweaters. Also due to the strikes a lot of Parisans would ask me about when the bus was coming but due to my lack of French I’d lead with a sorry? Which usually they’d re-ask in English except one guy who went “sorry? Sorry?! Sorry!” as if he’d never heard such a ridiculous thing before in his life before leaving in a huff. And then there was the Puerto Rican mother who had had the worst luck with finding her way around because no one would answer her or stop to help her when she asked for help and who became my airport travel buddy. Thankfully after a lot of asking she did eventually get help but it was after finding non-Parisians who could speak Spanish or English. Sometimes I’d also just have concerned people with tourist maps walk up to me and show me the map and I’d confirm on my phone and point them in the right direction or in cafes when people realized there was no wifi and thus they couldn’t look up their directions as they had hoped.

Anyway just be very careful and make sure all your stuff is zipped up and you’re guarding it well and avoid people with clipboards asking if you speak English trying to collect your signature.

I don’t always write about how my flights to places went. I’ve had awful flight experiences and great experiences. There’s airlines I love and airlines I hate. And generally an airline named after the country it’s from are pretty decent. There is one that’s pretty awful that I hope I never fly again, but that’s besides the point. I took a couple different airlines to and from Paris. I took Korean air to Osaka, and KLM to Amsterdam and then out of Amsterdam. But my Air France trip from Osaka to Paris was magical.

I sat in a row with two women, one Japanese who spoke fluent English, and one Korean who was doing her best. I tried to help with small things like soup and snacks with the words I knew and the woman was delighted I knew some Korean. Lo and behold after some chatting she lives in the same city I live in in Korea and was flying with her daughter who spoke more English but was seated in a different row. On my left side was a French family of four with two small children. The small eldest boy kept getting lost in his wanderings of the aisle so I’d put out my hand and would point towards his row, to the point whenever he’d toddle over he’d first look up at me, confirm it was me, and then head into his row to his seat. It was quite cute. It was also a pretty stressed family since they had two small children who did not want to sit for a 10 hour+ flight and at least one of which kept jumping off to go into the aisle, where he nearly got crushed by the flight attendant with a trolley. (I awkwardly had to put my hand on the guys back because I didn’t know any other fast way to stop him from crushing the kid, but thankfully this was greatly appreciated since he hadn’t seen the child playing in the aisle.)

But the magic of the trip wasn’t just the strange community I felt in my area with small children in the aisle or being walked back and forth down the aisle followed by their parents, as a little girl did followed by her super tall multi-lingual French dad.

The magic resided near the bathrooms and in the fact no one seemed to care if you were up and out of your seat. On most flights there seems to be some annoyance to if you’re up and about. You’re constantly in someones way or in their bubble of space if you’re up. It’s only acceptable if you’re out of the way and waiting for the bathroom. But this Air France flight I was on did not care. No one batted an eye, no one complained, no flight attendant told anyone to remain in their seats or to go back, unless there was turbulence and it was unsafe. In fact the area around the bathrooms was made into what felt like, as a young Japanese boy said to us, a party.

Rather than go up and down the aisles multiple times offering water and snacks they set it up near the bathrooms as a self serve area, which some people knew and others didn’t. It took me awhile to get use to the idea. People stood around helping themselves to water, juice and soda and chatting with the people around them. Organically moving to adjust for new people or to let others pass or the flight attendants access their supplies. But there was never any pressure to return to our seats, something I doubted the Japanese boy ever did since every time I came back he was still there, chatting with someone new. About part way through the flight snacks were brought out and at first I thought it was the attendant preparing to walk them down the aisles and returned to my seat only to realize it was self serve. So what had been a big box of sandwiches and momiji manju, when I returned with my seat neighbor and her daughter was now just mars chocolates and ice cream. There was also self serve packets of soup and hot chocolate.

I really greatly enjoyed that flight. I liked getting to chat with other people on the flight who were extremely friendly. The family to my left even gave me a Japanese rolled up cookie part way through the flight. I’m sure to some people having the kids in the aisle and unable to sit still was annoying, especially for the people in front of them and behind them but sitting off to the side was totally fine and I had a very peaceful and fun flight and I hope to one day get to enjoy the magic of that self serve snack and drink section again.

When I was in junior high school and high school we had two options for languages. Spanish and French. Before we decided on one we had to take both for a 1/3rd of a semester. The majority of my grade took Spanish, but on the very first day I was determined that I would not take Spanish. Not because of a lack of interest in the language or a true love of French but because the teacher spoke in monotone without any inflection whatsoever and I feared I’d fall asleep in his class and fail. So I took French and I took it for the entirety of high school, becoming one of the few kids in Independent French which was like self-study where we read and translated books. You would think because I was in French club and in such high levels of French classes that I’d drop into Paris without any concern for the language. But I’ve been in South Korea for 5 years. And in college rather than continuing French I dabbled in other languages like Japanese and a short stint in ASL. All of this has made my French super rusty to the point I sat on the flight shaking my mental language piggy bank for the French I remembered. Bonjour (hello/good morning), Excusez-moi (excuse me), s’il vous plâit (please), au revoir (goodbye), ça va? (It’s okay?), Je m’appelle Lauren. (My name is Lauren) Je suis américaine. (I am an American) Parlez voux anglais? (Do you speak English?) merci beaucoup (thank you very much).

It was better than I feared. But still, on my flight there was a mini French course and I threw myself into that in the hopes of jogging my memory. I remembered more than I had expected when confronted with the games and quizzes. The little song we did for the months of the year was still there and I remembered about half of the days of the week. But when confronted with actual sentences while I did well with the tests and quizzes they didn’t stick. Which meant most of my interactions started with a French greeting, and then delved into my request in English or stumbling to read what it was I wanted to order, and then ending in a French thank you. Which is kind of disappointing. It makes me wonder how I would’ve fared if I’d gone on the French trip in high school. (

Though no one else signed up for the French trip while I was in high school so I don’t think it would’ve happened anyway.) But like most major cities there was a lot of English around and people who spoke English.

Reading blogs made it sound like you needed to announce loudly to every single person you saw Bonjour! or they’d instantly shut off and treat you with disdain. I found as long as I said bonjour first before stating what I wanted I was usually fine. I didn’t have to say bonjour to every staffer I possibly saw which was what one blog I read suggested, after all usually they were busy. I did however say it to the front desk of my hotel every morning and tried to remember to switch to Bonsoir whenever evening rolled around. But I also had wifi that worked 90% of my trip so I didn’t get lost and usually was in touristy areas so I could ask an information desk for help with whatever I was lost with. The only time I ran into “rude” Parisians was when they were super busy and I didn’t find it that rude. It was just more of a bored or quick tone. But I do agree with saying hello or good evening in French and a nice merci in there to help show some respect to the country you’re visiting.

I’m actually really glad I went to Paris this January. I had a really good, though exhausting time.

A Solo Trip to Paris I've spent a lot of time waffling this year back and forth between traveling or not. On the one hand I'm heading home in March and I should be saving my money to help get me through until I find a job and have health insurance and try to figure out what it means to be an adult in America.

#france #how to get around paris #paris #public transit #public transportation #scams to be wary of #solo travel #transportation passes #travel

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