Vicki Lesage - Petite Confessions: A Humorous Memoirette

Petite Confessions

A HUMOROUS MEMOIRETTE

VICKI LESAGE

Published by Party Girl Press

Distributed by Smashwords

Copyright 2015 by Vicki Lesage

All rights reserved. No part of this book may bereproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronicor mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by anyinformation storage and retrieval system, without permission inwriting from the author, except for the inclusion of briefquotations in a review.

Cover design by Ellen Meyer and Clara Vidal

Author photo by Mickal Lesage and Damien Croisot

This book is available in print at onlineretailers.

Table of Contents

There comes a time in every girls life where sheneeds to confess to the world just how many times shes passed outon a bathroom floor. How many times she drank too many glasses ofBordeaux and stumbled home. How many times...

Oh wait, scratch that. That would be trsembarrassing.

What if instead she just shared a few of herless-than-proud moments? Times when she tried to pull off cooldance moves but found out that not only was The Shopping Cart out,but it had never been in. Times when she tried to speak French withthe locals, only to call people virgins and end up eating afinger.

Intrigued?

In this collection of petites confessions, Ishare times I slipped up, tripped up, and flipped out on my journeyto establish a new life in Paris. It hasnt been easy, but 10 yearsdown the road Im still living, loving, and surviving in the Cityof Light. If you like what you see, I embarrass myself further inmy full-length memoirs, Confessions of a Paris Party Girland Confessions of a Paris Potty Trainer.

Because if a girl falls in the middle of Paris, butno one is around to read about it, did it really happen? Yes,unfortunately, it did really happen because I have the bruises toprove it. But if I can make someone laugh (at me or with me, Imnot picky) then it will have all been worth it.

Happy reading!

Vicki Lesage

Paris, 2015

In college, I was one classy chick. After a long dayof playing teachers pet in World Geography and DifferentialEquations, Id head out with the gang to one of the numerous kegparties in my small university town of Columbia, Missouri. While myfellow co-eds handed over $5 in exchange for a red plastic cup andall the beer they could drink, I brought my own wine. And wineglass.

Drunken students surrounded me, slamming lukewarmbeers while I sipped daintily from my black-stemmed glassware, madeout of actual, breakable glass.

I suppose I should specify that this fancy glasscame from Walmart and my fancy wine came from a box.

Further adding to the class factor, I mixed the winewith Fanta into order to be able to chug it alongside mybeer-drinking companions during drinking games. Theyd make tripsto the keg, Id pull my two-liter bottle of mixed deliciousnessfrom my oversized purse and fill er up.

So you can imagine the culture shock when I movedfrom St. Louis to Paris. As in France. Where the naked ladiesdance.

I enjoyed good wine, sure, but Isecretly enjoyed my low-class wine cocktails, too. During college Icould explain it away as a budget issuemixing the wine made itlast longer and didnt cost as much. But now, as a 20-somethinggirl on her way to Paris, Id have to leave the mixed wineconcoctions at home. I would totally miss them.

Turns out, I never thought about those mixed drinksagain. As soon as I arrived in France, Parisians welcomed me withopen arms. Arms holding bottles of delicious wine that didnt needto be mixed or chugged or made to suffer any other horribletreatment.

I drank plenty of that wine over the years. Whichled to its own set of problems, but at least no one ever had toknow about my boxed-wine-soda-drinking past. Until now.

Pulp Fiction taught me loads of usefulinformation.

If someone ODs in front of me, I must stab a syringeof adrenaline into their sternum (kids, dont try this at home). Inow know the difference between a motorcycle and a chopper (truth:I dont). Most importantly, mayonnaise + fries = artery-cloggingpieces of heaven.

Move along, ketchup. Cavort with hot dogs andburgers all you want. My fries need more calories than you canoffer. And not only does mayo with fries taste better, but you lookEuropean. Classy.

McDonalds in France has taken it one step further,creating Sauce Deluxe. Its fancy. Dont believe me? Deluxe isright there in the name! Im not sure exactly what the sauce is,but its rich and creamy and has herbs in it. Its mayonnaisesrich, sexier cousin. I dont need to know more. I just want to dipmy fries in it, smear it on my face, and swim in a pool of it if Ican get my hands on enough of it.

But thats the thing. You cant get your hands onenough of it. The McDonalds employees guard that stuff like itsthe Crown Jewels. Ordering it requires some secret code. And yourenever sure itll actually be waiting for you at the bottom of yoursoggy take-out bag.

You see, Its Royal Highness is served as a side forDeluxe Potatoes, which is French for deluxe potatoes. You have tosay it with an accent in order to be understood, so you end upsounding like an asshat saying deuh-loox poh-tay-tohs with reallywimpy ts.

Deluxe Potatoes are fine but theyre not asluxurious as they sound. They dont dress in Prada and they donthave even have a chauffeur. Theyre just potato wedges, really. Andthe potato-to-deep-fried ratio is all out of whack. A French frygives you way more grease for your buck (or euro, as it were).

So your best bet for a tasty calorie-laden feast isfries with Sauce Deluxe, but good luck completing this black markettransaction. My crazy fry-lovin ass always tries anyway. Bonjour,Id like a Big Mac Menu (pronounced Beeg-uh Mack-uh Men-oo) withSauce Deluxe on the side.

One of three things will happen:

1. Huh? Which sauce? Lady, dont act like youdont know what Im saying. Theres no other sauce that even soundsremotely like the one I just said. But no matter how many times Irepeat Soss deuh-loox Im met with a blank stare. Finally, I tapout Morse code and comprehension dawns. Ah, you meant sossdeuh-loox. Gah, thats exactly what I said!

2. You can only get that with Deluxe Potatoes, notfries. What, are they stapled together? Why cant I get SauceDeluxe with anything other than Deluxe Potatoes? Heres 30 DeluxeCents, gimme the damn sauce.

3. Sure. Wait, what? I anticipated more of aproblem than this. Oh, there we go. They forgot to put the damnsauce in the bag, forcing me to eat plain fries. Did you hear me?PLAIN FRIES, people. The horror.

It shouldnt be this hard. I should be able to orderit, pay for it, and receive it. Its McDonalds, not rocketsurgery.

But after years of hardcore investigative work, Ifinally cracked the code.

Step 1: Order everything except the Sauce Deluxe.Wait until they repeat your order back to you so that youre surethey didnt screw the rest of it up.

Step 2: When they ask Is that all? NOW is when yousay, as if it just occurred to you, Oh, and a Sauce Deluxe.Theyll say You have to pay, in a tone that indicates they thinkyoure too cheap to pay 30 cents. You respond with OK in a tonethat says I eat 30 cents for breakfast because if youre going tofork over that much cold hard cash you might as well feel superiorabout it.

Step 3: Wait 20 minutes for them to assemble yourorder because even though its fast food, they never anticipatedthat more than one person between the hours of 6 pm and 8 pm wouldwant a Big Mac. They did anticipate youd want fries, though, sothose are getting nice and cold in your bag while you wait.