3/24/11

Pietons (with an accent over the e)

If you ride the metro in Paris every morning chances are you will get a Direct Matin.
I always get one just to test my French and get an idea of what is going on in the city/world. I'm no news buff. To tell the truth I found out Elizabeth Taylor died via Facebook and it was confirmed by Direct Matin: "LES BEAUX YEUX D'HOLLYWOOD SE SONT FERMES". Just for grins today, I read most of Direct Matin. Sadly, the one thing I laughed out loud on was the article on the death of elderly pedestrians.
Yes, I laughed out loud.
I'm sick.
So here are the statistics, 43 people died in the streets of Paris in 2010, 78% of those were people over the age of 60.
I gotta tell you, the numbers don't surprise me. When I was younger I thought all elderly were so sweet and nice and my cousin who is a nursing home administrator found this to be very humorous. In short, he said, "Peggy, if they were assholes when they were younger, then they just intensify the older they get". I thought that was the craziest thing I had every heard.
Then I moved to Paris.
Someone forgot to tell the elderly on the streets of Paris that when you are an asshole in your 20's through say 40's you have the agility to back it up, but the older you get, you loss that agility.
Take this for an example:


This girl has not a care in the world that the light is red, she needs something out of her bag and she just crosses. It's as if the world should stop for her. When you're young and cute that may in fact work out for you. But sadly honey, you will get older and if the numbers are right, it's not looking good for you. Also, everyone please note the elderly man crossing as well. Not a care in the world. Just for fun, you should know this cross walk is right off a round about.
Finally, check out the silver hair lady skipping the cross walk all together. Confident and slow.
As for the others, yes they are crossing on red as well. The lady in black at a standstill is unsure of her decision, but trust me, she carried on.
So to stop the "bad behavior" the police are now going to give them a verbalization and a fine of 17 euros. The best part, the police have mobil credit card processing units on them for on the site collection.
Cheers.

3 comments:

Brandon said...

Thank you for the laugh!! No wonder we are together, we are both sick!

patty said...

Haha. That is funny stuff....and no wonder we are besties! :) and i think that your cousin is right!

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