The French Frown

I'm a McDonalds girl. Always have been. Never been a big fan of Burger King or Wendys, neither of which exists in France anyway (Burger King on Champs Elysee died a while ago). However, this week we ventured out to try Quick, a French fast food joint - it was Hana's idea because she heard from other kids in school that they offer a more mature happy meal with more mature freebies for bigger kids (Hana btw stopped getting Happy Meals at McDonalds long ago - she can down a full adult-sized burger now).

Where was I - oh but this posting is not about the merits of fast food or comparison between fast food chains, though that could have been interesting enough. Rather, I experienced something that has routinely annoyed me since my arrival in France so I need to rant.

So I get up to the cashier and start ordering. I am not familiar with their menu and they only have them up on the overhead board, so I am straining my eyes and making decisions and dealing with Manolee clinging to my leg all at the same time. As I order, the cashier is looking ahead and starts furrowing her eyebrows and making very strained frowns and leans forward. All those combined facial expressions and head movements suggests to me that she is trying to convey that she is attempting really very hard to understand what I am saying. Now this just really gets me pissed off.

Because I've seen that face before. Fairly often. French people make that same serious frowned face when I speak sometimes. Sometimes it's an apologetic "oh I'm trying and trying but I just cannot make out what you are saying" frown. Sometimes it's a downright hostile "what the f*ck is this woman going on about" frown.

I guess what pissed me off especially at Quick was that I was saying American words like CHEESEBURGER, but I was trying to say it like a French person, because if I say CHEESEBURGER like a bona-fide American, they would not understand that either! So isn't it strangely ironic that I, an American, am trying to say a quintessential American word like CHEESEBURGER with a French accent and failing at it so miserably that the cashier is frowning and straining to understand me? Do you see why I was getting all pissed off?

Thank you.

PS The more mature freebie in the Quick Happy Meal was 5 free downloads of MP3s, which did indeed please my more mature Hanaya. Oh and my kids were proven to be McDonalds girls too - they didn't like the food much at Quick.