Choose your own slum fight!

I've been working on my idiomatic expressions in French and in English. Some favorites include: "La goutte d'eau qui fait déborder le vase" (straw that broke the camel's back) and "Gourmand à table, gourmand au lit" (untranslatable).

For example, I sleep very deeply. In English, you might say, "I sleep like a log." I'm still searching for an equivalent in French, but I think the following two might work:

1) You sleep so deeply you Sleep through someone breaking into your kitchen window and throwing your favorite chinaware on the tile floor.

Our mutant bichon frisé-trailer-trash gardienne sent her little feline messenger of evil into our kitchen at 4 a.m. On its way in, the cat sent my two favorite mugs scattering onto the tile floor. I woke up to see my geeky Planets mug from the London Science Museum in big pieces. And then my heart shattered into a million pieces.

A special thanks goes to my roommate for waging a 30-minute staredown with the wee offender.

2) You sleep so deeply you Sleep through the shrieks of Chinese prostitutes, and a fist/knife fight.

NB: I woke up at some point, heard wailing, thought, "Wow, that person sounds like they are in distress!"...and promptly fell. Back. Asleep. This raises all sorts of troubling personal questions. Aboard a sinking titanic, I would have thought, "What luxury! I didn't realize this was a waterbed..oh, must be leaking...zzzzzzzzz."

To set the scene: Roommate 1 (R1) was on the courtyard-(ring)side of the apartment and Roommate 2 was overlooking the street. Houseguest LL was allegedly somewhere between the two, wondering how she was going to incorporate "street fights' into her postcards from Paris. Where was I, again? Blissfully snoring, clutching a pillow, in my room.

Using R1,R2, LL, and the Gardienne's versions of events, the story reads something like MadLibs. Did you ever read the "Choose your Own Adventure: Slum fight!" book? No?

Everyone woke up because two (Chinese/American Indian) men were punching each other in the courtyard. One fat Chinese prostitute was screaming, the other was wailing, and the last one was holding a man back. The men were fighting because (they are father and son/one caught the other with a Chinese prostitute/one was doing bad things to a Chinese prostitute/they were all high and it seemed like a good idea.)

Then various Tamil neighbors start throwing objects onto the offending group in the courtyard.

Plainclothes policemen arrive and arrest the first, long-haired (Chinese/American Indian) man.

Then, (the same man, released/the second man) comes back out onto the street, with a BOWSTAFF and KNIFE because he is (high out of his mind/looking to hunt large prey.) Bowstaff man then tries to stab (a shadow/unidentified individual) through a car. Promptly arrested.

Wailing ceases.

La Fin.

* This is most certainly not a generality about women of Chinese origin in our neighborhood. Our very nice landlord has often mentioned that there were these two ladies of the night in the building, and that she has contacted the police, thus helping us come to the conclusion that they have sex for money. Also, they dress like whores.

Oh sweetie, no.

There are only a handful of hard and fast fashion rules. They keep men from making bad sock choices, and women from wearing white shoes in winter. People follow these rules, and respectably-dressed society marches on.

The rest go unspoken, as if the world will understand and follow these rules out of common sense. This is a very foolish assumption.

The other day, a girl was sitting across from me in the metro. It was 80-90 degrees fahrenheit outside, and pushing 100 in the metro car. It is August.

This fine lady was wearing calf-high boots, no tights, short shorts and a RABBIT FUR VEST.

(While I understand French girls' sensibility to draughts, this is absurd. Furthermore, as any French girl knows, the way to catch a cold is through the throat. If you really are feeling a draught, cover up your neck immediately if you don't want to catch the plague.)

And to top it all off, she had bleached her naturally black hair..making it a putrid shade of orange/red. Between this and the pelt, she was the spitting image of ... Pebbles.

So, to the unfortunate girl in the métro: No, oh no, no, no. Perhaps it would be easier if we layed (laid?) out some ground rules. Shall we?

Uggs are slippers, not shoes. People do not wear slippers outside of the house, now DO THEY? The only situation that would require such intense slippers would be a combination of sub-zero temperatures and broken heating. Female residents of Long Island, this probably does not apply to you.

Africa pants are only acceptable in Africa. Preferably only worn by denizens of the great continent. NO EXCEPTIONS. I don't want to hear "but they're so comfortable." So is nudity. But that will get you arrested. Just like Africa pants should.

People who wear camel-toed shoes should be shot on sight. I understand these shoes are popular in China. Luckily, the Chinese government has no problem with fast and loose applications of the death penalty. I think we can find a common solution, here.

If we work together, we can build a future without girls like this: