It Should Have Been A Chico's Kind of Day ...

I am blogging on from Paris, the Anti-Chico's Capital of France. The City of Lights is a certifiably schizo place. On one hand you are smack dab in the midst of rue after rue of Patisserie, Boulangerie and Fromagerie. Cozy shop windows off St Germain des Pres are decorated with hunks of green speckled cheese and taureau sausage, dangling baguettes, prissy petit-fours in spring colors, and pain au chocolat glistening with buttery crust. You stop. You drool. You press your nose against the glass and gawk. You feel horrendously and hugely American. You watch the hip-parade of French ladies in their stilettos, their furs and their hipless, gut-less torsos strut inside, insinuating themselves in front of a case of marzipan.

Of course, you think to yourself, here comes the lesson! Here comes the slap-in-the-face for every Chico's fan. The secret is that these mademoiselles buy only one perfect morsel and then savor said butter-sugar-drenched gem for hours, if not days. Isn't that what they say? The French stay Audrey-Hepburn slim because they don't wolf down their food? They cherish every calorie?

BS. I watched femme after femme buy up half the Patisserie and gobble it down. The real secret? Other than DNA? Nicotine. They inhale after every bite. Deeply, completely, and then with enormous panache, they whoosh the killer vapor out via precisely painted Chanel'd lips. It must be engraved in the French Constitution-- the right to smoke everywhere and anywhere. No sooner had the pink puff of a tender raspberry tarte touched those proverbial French tastebuds than Mademoiselle replaced les framboises with a glowing Gauloises. I've been choking throughout most of France and it wasn't from the gristly Entrecote with a side bucket of Bearnaise.

Note to Chico-ettes: There are no Chico's in France. From now on, hear-ye, hear ye --all travel plans must be geared to the Chico's-Status of a Country. Chico's-Friendly or Not? I lived in fear during all 13 hours of flight to CDG that Air France would lose my baggage and I would be forced to spend my entire trip searching for a decent pair of wash-in-your-hotel-room-sink pants with elastic waistband. Just to experiment, I have visited a blur of floors at both Galeries Lafayette and Bon Marche. No elastic anywhere, except maybe on the occasional wisp of a soutien-gorge.

Au revoir for now!