It is an unfortunate thing to take two French boys to a titanic American box store. For them, it is apparently a license to propagate mayhem.
From running around and having fun with the multitude of objects for sale, exclaiming the American novelty of these objects at high decibels, commentary that no doubt reached the furthest reaches of that capacious storehouse, and must likewise have ricocheted off its metal walls to eventually meet the ears of the entire store staff, who were no doubt already familiar with the items on display, to the theatre of trying to put tight-fighting bathing suits on the one boy who did not wish to remove his shirt nor his sweater from around his shoulders nor to have his hair touched, which already looked like a bird's nest although we could not share this fact with him, or the other boy who refused to part with his Batman mask even within the discreet and confidential confines of the changing cabinet, it became a conundrum to bring to a fortuitous conclusion what had seemed to the parents a straight-forward transaction: Give money, get bathing suits.
It just never materialized, mine and Natalya's theory. To just run in, buy, and leave.
And I can give you my assurance that our unfortunate salesgirl was rather taken aback by our family tour of the premises. Not only by the spectacle of trying to get swimsuits on two boys who were against the very idea of it, which she must have thought a peculiarly European variant of parental cruelty, but by us speaking to the children agitatedly in three different languages, and getting replies in the same (for example: "Get off, Pal!", or "Cuckoo Man!", or "C'est pas possible, ca!" or something in Russian which I am not at liberty to print), was ─ I think ─ just a bit too much for her, and she remained mystified, distant ─ unsettled, really ─ throughout the duration of our stay.
I do hope she is alright.
