April Fool

Or: What the hell am I doing?

The taker of this photograph was in complete sympathy with the garbage strikers.

The first thing I noticed about the driver who met me at Charles de Gaulle airport were his enormous hands— large enough, I thought, to choke a Clydesdale. But he had a kind face and I very much wanted to stay on his good side.

As I settled into the back seat after he’d tossed my baggage in the trunk, I introduced myself and asked him his name. I couldn’t quite make it out (Arshak? Artak?) and was too embarrassed to ask again, but what I did comprehend with absolute certainty was the fact that he was Armenian. He told me he had cousins in Los Angeles. “Like Kim Kardashian,” he said, but in French. This caused me to wonder about two things I’d never wondered before: 1.) Did he mean to imply that Kim Kardashian was his cousin? and 2.) What was the French word for “Yuck”?

I have since learned that word is “Beurk.”

---

---