Here are some funny stories that I'll share on this blog because I'm not sure everyone would appreciate my dark, dry humor. When both were told I laughed quite loudly and replayed them in my mind several times. They need to be in a movie, which is another obvious reason I enjoy them so much.

The missionary we were with, who recently moved from a town right outside Paris to a village in the country, told us he knew he was in the country when this happened....

He stood in line at the grocery store and the cashier told the man who was paying that the butcher must have forgotten to put a price on his meat.

"ALAN!" he proclaimed, surprisingly knowing the butcher by name. "He must be sleeping on the job! I'll go back and get a price from him."

The man got out of line and the cashier continued with the next person. When the man returned from the butcher the cashier said, "I hope you don't mind, I didn't want to keep these poor people waiting."

"Poor?! They don't look poor to me!" he said jokingly.

A man in the back of the line chimed in, "Well don't go treating me like some rich person! I just got a divorce!"

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Another missionary in a similar small village talked about how sometimes he breaks cultural norms simply because he can, as it's expected from him as a foreigner. (Don't take that the wrong way...he isn't being obnoxious or insensitive here...just having a little fun.)

So one day he was standing in line at the post office, which he describes as "the slowest, most archaic institution." The line was long, the place was hot and stuffy, and he described the other customers as morose. And morose might be a good word to describe the French in any public setting like this one.

Where the cultural thing to do is stand equally as quiet and morose, avoiding all eye contact, he decides to address the entire line by saying, "MAN! They could at least get some MUSIC in here for us while we're waiting! Or SOMETHING!"

[This again, and partially in the way he said it, made me giggle hysterically.]

This jolted everyone out of their morosity (is that a word?) with grunts of approval, and someone chimed in, "Hmmm, I've never thought of that" and "Yes, a good idea" and a few moments later a postal worker came out from behind the desk and said, "You know, we used to have music in here a few years back" and before he knew it things started looking a little more lively and friendly.