Despite the fact that I've lived in Quebec (Canada's French speaking province) for more than 25 years now, I still cannot speak French well. Feel free to point and snicker. Both my spousal unit and daughter, who are perfectly bilingual, do.

Normally it's just not an issue because the thing is, I live in a very bilingual corner of the province. I've picked up enough French to handle basic shopping, banking and such-like if I have too, eh. Mostly what happens, though, is the minute I open my mouth and my pitiful, hilariously accented French starts to tumble out most folks immediately switch to English.

Enablers. I'm surrounded by enablers.

Except for Friday.

The problem began Wednesday when I opened my gym locker and my nose was assaulted by eau de tootsies so severe that I wondered if I should be wearing a chemical warfare suit or something. Realizing that noses and perhaps even lives could be at stake here, I decided I'd better buy new Odour Eaters for the gym sneakers pronto. After my workout I drove into the village where I normally shop.

Not a single place had Odour Eaters in stock. I think you can well imagine my horror. Fortunately, the spousal unit had to go to Granby on Friday so I decided to tag along and score some Odour Eaters there.

Now the deal with Granby is that it's much more francophone, or French-speaking than where I live. So when I strode into a drug store, smiled brightly at the clerk and asked her, "Parlez-vous anglais?" (Do you speak English?) I got a resounding no.

Alrightee then.

As I was winding up to deliver my question in my fractured French, I realized that I did not know the French word for insoles, which is what Odour Eaters are. So I decided to try it just asking for the product by the brand name.

"Avez-vous des Odour Eaters?" (Got any Odour Eaters?)

The clerk regarded me with the same blank stare my cats give me when I try discussing the benefits of holding back any and all puking until the spousal unit comes home so HE can clean it up.

Yep, we're talking complete and utter incomprehension here.

Uh oh.

This meant I had to resort to my Grade Two level descriptive French, coupled with the ever popular Marn Does The Mime.

"Je cherche des choses qu'on met dans les souli�res pour manger les odeurs," (I'm looking for the thingies you put in shoes to eat smells) I said, pointing energetically at my feet, as if The Source Of All Understanding was right there in my sneakers.

The clerk studied my feet and then her eyes met mine. Complete and utter incomprehension. It was probably my hideous accent. She gestured for me to stay put and she went and got another clerk. I repeated my request for the thingies you put in shoes to eat smells. My miming got more enthusiastic as I tried to act out putting something inside a shoe. To convey the odour problem, nose holding was involved.

I was a desperate woman.

At the end of my bravura performance, the two clerks exchanged puzzled glances. They said something to each other in French very quickly that I didn't understand. Clerk Two gestured for me to follow him and as we were striding purposefully through the store we passed an aisle where I spotted the Odour Eaters.

"Regarde! Les Odour Eaters!" (Lookie! Odour Eaters!) I said, barely able to contain my joy. The clerk looked at me in amazement. Whatever he'd been leading me to, (and really, the mind boggles at the possibilities) it most definitely wasn't Odour Eaters.

The great thing about an experience such as this is that it burns the word into your vocabulary. So now I know that semelles are insoles and Odour Eaters are D�vore-Odeur Semelles. As a bonus, it involved almost no humiliation at all, unlike the time years ago I first tried to buy chicken breasts.

The proper French for chicken breasts is poitrines de poulet. If you translated this literally into English, you'd be saying chicken chests.

What did I ask for?

Well, I knew the French word for a woman's breast was sein so I asked for les seins de poulet which would be the equivalent of asking for chicken tits. The poor guy behind the counter did his best not to laugh, but he just couldn't help himself and laughed until he was at the point of tears.

I'm still getting over that one.

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 158.54 miles (255.1 kilometers)
Goal for 2003: 500 miles - 804.5 kilometers