With one extra day to do nothing, or rather, with nothing planned, we had a chance to shop at all those cute little stores on the West Bank.
I’m pretty secure in my manhood, in that, I can carry around a couple of bags of girls’ stuff and not be too offended. However, I will admit, there’s just no way to stand outside of a specialty boutique and look macho. Just doesn’t happen. No amount of posturing can cure that.
The girls were at one store, and I wandered across the street to a chocolate shop. I was looking for some kind of special chocolate bar to fulfill a request for an Austin girl, surely a simple request. I bought candy bar, rather, a bar of fine Paris chocolate, and hopefully, that’ll do.
Two of the girls joined me in the chocolate store, and they cavorted around the various piles of candies, rich and redolent with that fragrant aroma of pure cacao, and one of them begged for some change to pay for a small purchase, just a slice of nougat.
“Ooops, I don’t have any more money,” I said.
The clerk took one look at me, and in English, “Paris is very expensive with two women.”
“Oh that’s nothing, he has four.”
Yeah, us Texans, we’re like so… je ne sais quoi – but then, I don’t know what.
“Qui est ta pere?”