A CLEAN BREAK….It was a difficult choice, but after considerable prayer and soul searching Marian and I finally decided last night that we could no longer continue living a lie. So we’re making a clean break and disposing of all Franco-German products in our house. Here’s the complete inventory:
-
An ?douard Boubat print of a tabby cat hanging above our fireplace. Too bad, I like it a lot, but we have other less treacherous artwork that can take its place.
-
Some miscellaneous German cutlery. Good for backstabbing, I suppose, but otherwise it won’t be missed.
-
A Cuisinart. No, wait, Marian says that only sounds French. It stays.
-
A bunch of Deutsche Grammophon CDs. Some of them are even of German and French composers!
-
A Braun shaver. No, two Braun shavers. No loss, though: the screens are always wearing out anyway and I’m tired of replacing them. I bet Norelco shavers last forever.
-
Some Limoges serving platters. We have too much china anyway. Too bad about the wedding presents, but these Limoges guys actually seem proud of being French!
-
A German car. Ouch. That’s gonna hurt. But a Corvette is faster anyway.
-
Many yards of French lace. I imagine Venetian lace should do just as well, shouldn’t it? And we’ve put all that Anzio unpleasantness behind us, haven’t we?
-
A Langenscheidt German-English dictionary.
-
A bottle of Mo?t champagne. Down the drain with it.
-
A miniature Eiffel Tower ? or La Tour Eiffel, as the French arrogantly insist on calling it ? from a trip to Paris in 1967. Hmmm. Maybe I can just put it in a box and shove it in the garage out of sight.
-
A considerable collection of German-made thread. That’s Marian’s problem. Australia is the world center of sewing and crafts, so we should be able to get some good thread from them. And they support us.
-
Some books by Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. Do those count? And do I have to give back those tickets to Les Mis?rables we just bought?
-
A poster in our bedroom from the “Impressionism and the French Landscape” exhibition at the LA County Museum of Art in 1984. I sure don’t want to wake up every morning looking at that.
I think that’s it. It’s going to be hard, and we’ll need to watch our shopping in the future, but I think we’ll be the better for it.
But I sure hope the Chinese and Japanese don’t go wobbly on us.
UPDATE: Y’all do realize I’m joking, don’t you? After all, you can’t seriously think I’d consider driving a Corvette?
