40 Days in Paris > Bienvenue à 40 Jours à Paris

Episode No. 1: En cas d’urgence...

"That’s OK, not everyone is perfect," said the doctor of radiology as he prepped me for a sonogram. I’ve started tagging the phrase "je regrette" to the end of my "I do not speak french" claim. I appreciated the doctor’s sense of humor in a very stressful situation.

I woke up on Sunday night with a terrible pain in my back - on the left. I could tell that it was not muscular. I knew that one of my organs was involved, but my knowledge of anatomy is poor and I didn’t know which organ it was. I know how to handle most emergencies but I had no idea what to do this time around.

One thing was clear. I live on the seventh floor with no elevator. Even though I didn’t know what to do about the pain, I knew I had to get down to the ground floor. I have no telephone, no cell phone, and no connection to the outside world when I am up in my apartment. I’m like Repunzel of the Right Bank once I get home. I arrange my entire schedule around climbing the stairs and making sure that I have everything I need before going up or down. I knew I had to get down the stairs before the pain was so great that I couldn’t move. But first I had to fix my hair.

I dread the narrow spiral staircase in my building and often think about a person needing to be rescued from a building such as mine. They would be out of luck. Knowing what I know of Paris, my guess is that the Pompiers would yell up the stairs and tell whoever was in trouble that they would have to come down before aid could be rendered.

posted by MonsieurCAVALIER @ 19.6.05