88. Back to work - for real this time (6/6)

    I am glad to see that most of the arrows are gone (see previous posts) and that I seem to be able to go wherever I want to go. I end up having to follow the crowds anyway as I don't know which room to go to. 

    The morning meeting drags on and on and on. I feel like a naughty school kid as I am not listening. I can't even see who is speaking because I am sitting at the back of the huge room. I am not the only one not listening as everyone is chatting away and a constant murmur now fills the hall. It is making me sleepy. 

    Suddenly the entire room grows perfectly still and completely quiet. The silence pulls me out of my drowsiness. I need to pay attention. Something important is being said. 

    'Alors pour le service, ... les entrées seront ... et ... à table nous aurons un système de ... et pour les boissons on pourra ...'

    My goodness! The guy is talking about food! The entire room has gone quiet just because he started talking about meal times! Dearie me! Now the reputation of the French being obsessed with food seems justified. Not only everyone is (me included) craning their necks and paying attention (I even saw a couple of people taking notes) but the guy's voice has a new thrill to it, he is speaking with what I could almost call a passion. There is tremor in his voice. To everyone's delight he is giving details about where to go and get hot dishes, how to get coffee, etc. Sadly this cannot go on for ever, even if a few members of staff try to prolong the enjoyable moment by asking questions such as:

    'Since we cannot help ourselves with the entrées (this is France after all, serious food vocabulary is used at all times), what if we think the size of our hors-d'œuvre plate is rather ... somehow ... well, not large enough for our appetite ...?'

    Everyone is starting to chat again but with food now being the topic of conversation the tamed murmurs turn into rowdy debates. The people with the microphones at the top of the hall just go on delivering their blurb. I am in a state of shock. I am suffering from what Michelle Obama calls 'low-grade depression'. 

    I go to the toilet to get some fresh air (don't ask) and I end up staying there for 15 minutes. The soap dispenser is broken and I have to get this sorted (don't ask) so I cross over to the other end of the building to find someone to fix it. A nice helpful man comes along and follows me into the ladies toilets (this is France, remember) but he cannot get the soap to come out either. He tells me 'it's dried up, all summer and no-one washing their hands' and I am thinking of helping by throwing water at the dispenser. Then he knocks the whole thing over. And the thing comes apart. Now he can see that it is just that the bag of soap is empty. So he has to go back. I am being civil and coping with this major event in a time of severe national crisis. I am not complaining, I keep saying thank you, this is so good of you, etc. I feel an urge to clap as he fixes the thing but think that might be taking it too far. So instead I just make a big show of holding my hands up in the air, a good distance away from my body as if they were so disgusting that even I could not bear to look at them. Thinking back now, that man must have thought I was some kind of nutcase and that is why he was so desperate to get the dispenser fixed. 

    Honestly. I am saying to myself. Seriously. But still, this is better than the 'meeting' in there. Eventually the soap dispenser is back on duty dispensing the life saving liquid again. I thoroughly soap my hands and wash them up to my wrists, three times: sanitary crisis on - I do not want to infect the whole meeting hall. 

    When I get back in there, the view of the whole room is a show in itself: people bent over on their phones, some frowning, some grinning, some dozing ... The chairs have been set wide apart and so some people are dangerously leaning as close as possible to their neighbours to have a little chat. They are trying to keep a safe distance but the conversation is so tempting that they lean more and more. A few of them are bound to topple over and fall off their chairs soon. 

    Anyway the big guy at the front (who is he anyway?)is still talking away into his microphone. 

    I am fidgeting on my seat. I cannot possibly take an other trip to the toilet so I pretend an important phone call and go for a wonder in the grounds.

    I go back in. I am still restless. But now it is because I realise the elastics of my mask are not really elastic and so I have a pain behind the ears. A quick look into the phone and I can see that the elastics (which are not elastic) are making my ears stick forward! Oh my god! Will I stay like that for ever? I pull on the elastics (which are not) to make them stretch. They won't - obviously ... This mask is home-made and I am worried the seams are going to tear. With all this excitement I can feel my beautiful homemade-mask-complete-with-removable-filter is becoming damp. The 'filter' (a bit cut out from a tissue) is getting soggy. I want to check that there is not a wet patch on the front as that would be so unsightly even for someone sitting at the back of the meeting hall. So I go out again and this time I stay outside until I can see the crowds heading to the food hall! 

    Mussels and chips are served and I enjoy this tasty - free - meal but then I have to put my mask on (no filter) and all afternoon the smell of mussels is following me around ...

    This year should be a good year!