Eiffel Tower Collapses in Fireball
My air-conditioned (!) Paris hotel room is so hot that for the first time in my life I put on anti-perspirant before going to bed. But I digress. When I saw that little object at the top of the following image, my sarcasm suppression system sprung a catastrophic leak, so read on.
Yesterday, in the city-state of Paris, an expensive tourist trinket called the Eiffel Tower collapsed in a monstrous fireball. The vesuvian furnace ignited when a perfect storm of tourist chemistry occurred as follows:
10,000 American tourists were simultaneously asking their hotel clerks for a fan (for their payably-but-not-palpably air-conditioned rooms)… at the exact same moment that 10,000 Parisian (or wannabee such) women were attempting to be THE most stylish woman in all of space and time. Things were holding steady for the most part… with most of the women wearing thigh-high cowboy boots (of which there is no such thing) in the 95-degree blazing sun, and all of the tourists being told that some other tourist already got the last fan. In point of fact, there were never any fans.
But then one woman, a Japanese Parisian I think, in a saran-wrap dress — Europeans eschew single-use materials except for clothing — had to go and do that power move thing of sticking one of her cowboy-booted legs way out in front of the other, like Angelina Jolie at the Oscars. And that was enough for the Paris air to exceed the maximum Van de Graff coefficient for static electricity, and all hell broke loose. Sparks went flying until all the Parisian bistro awnings were flapping aflame, and before you knew it, the fireball was consuming everything in its path and the grand tower was reduced to a molten ball of Chou de Fer (look it up, it’s apt).
The resourceful French citizens, however, quickly put a shade awning over the whole mess, sufficient to protect 5 or maybe 10 tourists, and relabeled it as modern art… and thousands now line up daily to fight to get under that grossly inadequate awning and pay €45 for a glimpse of modern art.
Bonne journee!
But seriously… this is just a fun joke to keep our strongest stereotypes — of the infamous “both sides” — alive and well. Ha, ha, ha. We loved the French people and traipsing all over France, from the biggest tourist-trap cities to its most isolated and serene hiking/biking/sailing island, and both nations can learn a lot from each other (but mostly us learning from France). I’ll write up that list soon, but here’s one item from it: even if it takes 20 years for the naysayers to die, convert the innermost parts of US cities to pedestrian-first areas.
And yes, that object in the top image is the world’s smallest ice tray. Altogether fittingly, it was in our non-functional room refrigerator, which, although not producing any cold on its inside, WAS producing heat on its outside and could not be unplugged because it was screwed in place with the electrical outlet at its back.
