Wifi From Hell

Bon. I’m sure it’s probably Mercury rising or some such obnoxious planetary event that is preventing me from the simple task of finding a WiFi café that works. Finally, I relented and went to Starbucks, because one can be sure that when all else fails, the gringos can be counted to save the day with things that work. This, after visiting 2 other places where the wifi just didn’t take. The first, a truly charming café with a temperamental wifi. In the second one, a password was needed and the waitress gave it to me twice as if I was asking her with a gun to her tete for the combination to her family’s safe or the life of her firstborn. I tried the password she gave me and couldn’t get through. She could tell I was having trouble but chose not to help further. So I drank my stupid camomile tea and left. Starbucks comes to view, a beacon of hope shining in the darkeness of French non laissez faire. It clearly says WiFi on a sticker on the door. Starbucks, ugly as sin, has lovely electric outlets to connect the laptops. I drool in anticipation. Mais non so fast, my dear amis. Because it just so happens that today, aujourd hui le wifi is not working. Perhaps tomorrow, if the repairateur deigns to swing by down from Mount Parnassus where he must surely live, in peace and harmony with the locksmiths who don’t work on weekends and the waitresses who hate your guts.
This is not the first time this comes to mind: The French look like they know their shit and they look like they like order and they get all bent out of shape if things are not exactly comme ça. But they are a Latin people in the end, which means that underneath the semblance of functionality, chaos lurks. Somebody said that when it comes to efficiency, the French think they are Germans but they are actually Italians.
There are always extraordinarily complex explanations for everything, but if you want to find what you are actually looking for, you have to for it somewhere in in the dusty volumes of the old Encyclopedistes. You may learn who built the building, and that the elderly and unemployed don’t pay or where to reserve your tickets for next year, but it doesn’t say anywhere what are the box office hours. Unimportant stuff like that. Oh, well.