Francophone Irony

Apparently, I just can't get a break.

I woke up this morning with an awful sore throat and decided pretty quickly that there was no way I was going to make it to work. After going back to sleep for another 5 hours, I finally made it out of bed and convinced myself to go run some of the errands I ought to have run last week, including picking up some dry cleaning (It is worth pointing out that the dry cleaner is less than a block away from my house. That it has taken me almost a week to go fetch my clothes is indicative of the sorry truth that I have not, in fact, been in Harlem at all between the hours of 7-7 during that period of time. I need a more sustainable schedule.).

I walk in and am greeted by a man I haven't seen there before, who turns out to be the owner. While he's searching for my clothes, he answers his cell phone and begins conversing in French with a Moroccan accent. When he hands me my order, I, in a state of illness-induced delirium, completely inadvertently thank him in French. He promptly hangs up the phone, turns to me, wide-eyed, and...begins telling me his entire life story. In French.

In ordinary circumstances, I would have been delighted at the opportunity to speak French. As it was, I couldn't help but be a bit exasperated: I spend all day, every day, trying to convince reticent Filipino men that I can function in a pastoral capacity if they wish to avail themselves of it, to very little success. I take a freaking sick day and the first random man I meet decides that the French-speaking girl who walks into his dry cleaning shop in her pajamas is The Chosen One to listen to and solve all his family problems. What irony.

After half an hour, I finally manage to extricate myself from the conversation. He bids me adieu with strict instructions to come back to chat as often as I like. I sure wasn't about to tell him that I live less than a block away and have to walk past his store to get virtually anywhere. But on the plus side...I made a new friend?

I kind of hope I don't need anything else dry cleaned before August.