An American in Provence

(Note: I was going through my unpublished drafts, and found this post I wrote several years ago, when we were still living in our first apartment and I didn't have a job. Thought I would publish it for your amusement.)

I wonder if anyone has ever actually gone crazy from heat. I am sure it must have happened. Here in Marseille, temperatures are flaring and tempers too.

Waiting in line at the post office- after 30 minutes and finally making it to the front of the line, a lady assisting a mentally handicapped woman comes in, walks straight to the front of the line (me) and asks "Does it bother you if we go in front of you?" Honestly, yes it bothers me. Go sit down and wait like those elderly people and that pregnant woman are doing and wait your turn! Ah well. I didn't really say anything and she jumped in line.

It made me wait a grand total of 30 seconds longer but the heat made the whole situation really annoy me. You just feel like screaming "I don't care if you are 100 years old, deaf, dumb, blind, pregnant, lost one leg in WWI and the second in WWII! I earned this place in line! You are taking it away from me only over my cold dead body!!!!" Of course, afterwards I felt like a terrible awful person that should be dragged out into the street and shot.

Question: Should people with special needs (elderly, pregnant women, physically/mentally handicapped, etc.) ALWAYS be allowed to go straight to the front of a line in a public place- post office, movie theater, bank, fast food restaurant, etc. EVEN when there are other circumstances (like it is extremely hot and everyone else has been waiting a long time too and they could have sat down and waited their proper turn)?

Another thing that is currently driving me more nuts than usual is the noise from the people who have their terrace right about at the level of our bedroom. On hot summer nights, we have to have the windows open, and as such are blessed with their banal conversation and music until 2 am. It makes me want to get out my recorder (yes, I bought a recorder. Yes, the Children's Instrument of Parental Torture. Don't ask why, I wanted to get back into music.) and give a hearty rendition of Hot Crossed Buns or Three Blind Mice out the window at 2 a.m. I am guessing that by the third verse:

Nice, light buns, Buy my currant buns; Come and try them, Then you'll buy them,
Nice, light buns.

that they will be running for cover.

Either that or a hose.

They would never figure out who did it!

Also found out that my maiden name can be anagramed into

Hit Man Gems

and if my middle name is included it is

He's the mental making

While Alain is

Pirate a volcano

Thanks http://www.anagramgenius.com/server.html !!!!

I am guessing that the way things are going, Alain is going to come home from work one day and find me sitting on the floor in front of the fan without a stitch on, rocking back and forth and jibbering to myself about La Poste.