At the SFR shop

Well I picked a bad day to take Pat's faulty phone back - the day the iPhone came out on SFR, and they were selling like bread rolls, as one says. I joined the queue. An elderly lady joined the queue behind me. There was another queue on the other side of the shop. It moved quicker than ours. It always does.

The chap in front of me was buying a new mobile for his mother. She destroys phones. There were 10€ off. To get it you had to fill in lots of forms. The salesman said "Why don't you insure the phone ?"

"Well, yes, but what does the insurance cover ?"

"Loss, theft, accidental damage, oxidation..."

"Yes, but if I am attacked in the street and someone takes my phone in my backpack ?"

"That's theft."

I noticed that the young man had a slight tremor. He seemed very nice.

"Yes, but what if I am attacked in the street and I drop my phone ?"

"Then that's accidental damage."

"But what about oxidation ?"

"Well that's if you have the phone in a wet or moist atmosphere."

"But what counts as a wet or humid atmosphere ?"

The lady behind me said "This is almost comical..." I was thinking of other questions that needed asking, like "What if I drop my phone in my cup of tea ?" "But what if I have already drunk my cup of tea and the phone falls in the empty cup and breaks ?" "Would it make a difference if it were coffee ?" "Chocolate ?"

In the queue opposite there was now just one elderly lady. I asked the lady behind me if she thought she could beat her in a fight and take her place.

"I am not good in a fight", she said. By this time we were getting on very well. I noticed that the salesman had started to tremble.

"So what number do I put here ?" The salesman read it to him.

"And the serial number ?" The salesman waved the box in his general direction.

Our friend sensed that his time in the shop was coming to an end and packed his things away.

The salesman disappeared into the back of the shop, then reappeared, walking swiftly to the exit. A coffee ? A cigarette ? A tranquilliser ? We all thought he had been wonderfully patient.

Meanwhile I helped a young man from Saudi Arabia choose an internet provider. Well there were no free staff around. I recommended Free or Darty. SFR are probably OK too though. 

We talked about the exorbitant price of mobile telecommunications in France. 

I said to the elderly lady "But the French put up with it ! And the French are militant ! They express themselves !"

"Ah yes," she said, "but we express ourselves and then say 'Oh, well, OK'".

"The British are different," I said, "We say nothing, but we just won't buy."

We talked about manners. "Oh the French are increasingly rude." she said.

I told her that I find the French wonderfully polite and helpful, but that my colleague, younger than me and a woman, finds them rude. "Are women despised while big men respected ?" I surmised.

"The elderly are despised", she said. Hmm. Maybe it's a macho culture thing. We're pretty near Spain, after all.

We had a nice time in the SFR shop, if slightly long. 

I am going to try and think of a suitable tract to carry, because one does spend quite a long time queuing in this kind of shop. 

Is there a tract in French about the length of eternity, I wonder.