Entertaining Visitors

Yesterday morning, while my husband and I were drinking coffee, there was a knock on our door. Since the two main entrance doors to our building are both only "openable" with door codes, the situation immediately acquired an air of mystery. Presumably, the knocker could be one of only a handful of people: someone living within our building, our landlord, a delivery man, or a friend with the code. None of the options seemed especially likely.

In fact, I was able to squash all of those possibilities almost immediately. First, we do not speak to anyone in our building, other than to have the rare awkward exchange in the hallway, or the occasional attempt at a "hello" in the Franprix supermarche across the street--both of which are often ignored. Then there is the fact that we only have 5 friends in France, with two of whom we had spent the prior day, so they would hardly be ringing us up. That left three possible friends, and it was half-way through a Monday morning, so the likelihood of a "pop-in" was quite low. To continue extinguishing the possibilities: our landlord has only come by once, and that was to bring a highly suspect "plumber" to "fix" a leaky water heater--and he planned this meeting days in advance (he had to, as this "plumber" was allegedly in serious demand). Finally, the only time we have had a delivery in the past six months, it turned out to be for someone on a different floor--a slightly disappointing situation since the package was a lovely floral arrangement that I would have quite liked to keep.

So now we can end this period of wild suspense once and for all: the answer was "E," none of the above.

Our callers turned out to be two guys who elbowed there way past an easily-elbowable me under the guise that there was some sort of gas situation requiring their immediate expertise. My French is limited, but hearing the words "gas" and "immediately" reduced me to quite the push-over.

Standing in the way of a gas problem was mostly concerning to me because, with my paltry French, I frankly have no idea how on earth I would be able to explain burning the building down. We don't tend to cover vocabulary related to accidental arson or random gas explosions in my French class.

Once inside the apartment, one guy immediately set out sweeping our never-before-used fireplace (this fear of accidental arson did not start yesterday, after all) and talking about our respirateur problems and sante issues. His friend (colleague?) then came in and, upon learning that I spoke some French, proceeded to deliver a 3-minute schpeal of their "required" services in rapid fire French.

Of course, I only realized in retrospect that Johnny #2 was offering nothing but a sales pitch. While he was speaking, I was too busy trying to understand every 15th word to actually and accurately guage what was happening.

But here is a good lesson: no matter what your culture, a swarmy sales pitch is a swarmy sales pitch. It took us about 10 times longer than it should have to figure out, but at least a lesson was learned in the end.

My husband and I stared at these guys for several minutes, unsure of how to proceed. There was some talk in the speech about how we are responsible for this apartment, and the insurance is up to us, and if something happens we will have to pay, etc. We were a bit alarmed. That feeling, combined with the cultural barriers left us in this sort of half-frozen, half-panicked state. As we watched #1 sweep our chimney and #2 ruffle through papers they both continued to throw around phrases like "obligatory contract" "insurance liability" "vital for your health" "necessary for safety" and "a law in Frace," ostensibly to intimidate us. Which obviously worked quite well since they were both in our apartment and drawing up papers as we stood there like imbeciles.

But what did we know?

So the next thing we know #1 has gone to retrieve his tools and this break in the fuss seemed to activate my brain, so I finally asked about the cost. We were told that if we called their company (likely story, if they worked for/with a company, wouldn't they be wearing a badge or a uniform with their name sewn on the lapel? You are suspect, people.) we would be charged 120 euro. But since they came to the building and we were lucky enough to answer the door, we only had to pay 80 euro.

I would just like to say here that the use of the word "lucky" in that last sentence was subjective.
My husband, admittedly the more level-headed and reasonable of the two of us, proved to be better in the crisis than me, even though he cannot speak French. I wish I could say I was surprised. Anway, he suddenly put a halt to the chimney sweeping/contract bullying and informed our vistors that we did not actually have to pay anything. Basically, he called them out out by saying, in his calm and reasonable manner, a version of the words any salesmen dreads. To paraphrase, it was something like: "What the fudgsicle is going on here, boys?"

He then told the clowns that we had no cash on us. They said that was fine, they could take a check. Well, lucky us (this time seriously), as we opted not to have personal checks with our French account.

Suddenly the mood turned a bit glum on the part of the chimney sweeping/gas checking/ sales pitching/ apartment-entry forcing team.

So let's see. In the U.S. I would NEVER allow two random men into my house. Yet here I was unsure. I was caught off guard in that way that I am often am in France--like is this behavior "typical" in France? Am I being tres American by not understanding what is happening? As I only understood about 50% of what was being said, I did not even know if their protocol was explained--it could have been. They were smiling and the chimney sweep even told his co-hort that I spoke decent French. Flattery will get you anywhere when you are dealing with insecure foreigners who are fearful that the sante of an entire building of French folk lies in their normally powerless hands.

The moral of the story is that some situations are not contingent on culture; a salesman is a salesman and no salesman should push his way into your apartment trying to scare the bejesus out of you. I do not think I am alone in that feeling. But it is just amazing how often, in France, I only see a situation for what it really is, after the fact. It is exhausting trying to assimilate, trying to understand, trying to "get" it. So much so, that my natural instincts/radar have become muted by all the other components on which I am focusing.

Next time someone knocks on our door, I seriously hope it is a delivery man with a nice floral arrangement that is actually meant for us. Frankly, I would even welcome the "plumber" again.