Rue de Merde

I begin today's weblog (because that is the origin of the hardly poetic word "blog") with a structure that harkens Seinfeld:

"What's with the French and their dogs?"

I've lived in several neigborhoods in Paris, from the very swank to less swank but pretty "bourge" throughout. What is interesting is that the more bourge it is, the older the average age of the population tends to be, and thus combining the privilege of age to the rampant sense of entitlement that money brings, the less people feel obliged to bend over far enough or long enough to clean up the crap left by their beloved domesticated beasts.

So the higher price of the "metre carré" = the more dog shit left on the sidewalk.

Initially, I found this impossibly rude of dog owners to leave shit on the sidewalk for everyone else to step in, but then I suppose that it's natural to be rude when you have money, given that the way human nature is, more money generally means more selfish, not more generous. I've been on the service end enough to know that most people with money behave in a way that is most unbecoming to them and generally makes one feel that it is of no interest to spend any more of one's time to get to know them better.

That was what I thought until I learned that either stepping in shit and/or being shat upon by birds is considered good luck in this country. 

If this true, then there is good luck ready to rain upon one at any moment from the height of many a chestnut tree that lines the avenue, or to be stepped in at any moment on any sidewalk. The city pratically abounds in good luck waiting to be had, to be spackled on or drenched in!

I'll never forget the first time I forayed into the green pastures that run along all of Avenue Foch, just off the very swank (this means full of crottes de merde) road I currently squat, because of the desire to feel the earth and not the concrete beneath my feet. 

(*Note, Foch is considered one of the chic-est avenues in Paris, but it is also, bizarrely, where many a hooker traipse, waiting to ask gentlemen who pass if they "have the time". The bit of Foch near Porte Dauphine, the entry to the Bois de Boulogne where the transexuals so advertently hawk their flesh, is known as the rendez-vous for échangeistes or couples "who swing." Amusing, to say the least, that this particular area of upscale property is also a hive of sexual traffic.)

But I digress...

The day I wanted to have a stroll on the green, I was stopped by an African gentleman who was in a green jumpsuit raking the leaves, who asked me if I had a dog in that wonderful sing-songy African French accent because actually, people with dogs are not really allowed on the green pastures. I said that I didn't have a dog, that I just wanted to walk on the grass. 

"Meh, 'y'a que de la mehde ici!"

Somewhat amused, he wanted to warn me that although it's technically not allowed, there is nothing but crap in this grass.

I kept going for my walk that day and many other days, but he was right: I eventually, for all my cautious effort not to, stepped in a pile of good luck.

(post-script: the original "rue de merde" is featured in Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I, which sneaky blogger.com is not letting my post a screenshot of.)