adventures in appliances

On Monday morning G woke up before the rest of us and decided, considerately, to make his own breakfast. S discovered the evidence shortly after G wandered into our room about 8:30 with a diaper in need of attention. He dumped G straight into the bath and then passed into the kitchen to get a drink. It was a bit like it must feel to walk into a house after a robbery. The refrigerator door was open, and on the floor in front of it were two wheels of Camembert in their open boxes, each with a healthy chunk bitten out. The two loaves of spice bread I had made the previous afternoon had been torn from their foil wrappings and the tops raked off, as if scavenged by wild dogs. And the carafe from our coffee maker lay on the floor, in pieces. All in all, a nice morning’s work.

So instead of walking down to the Eiffel Tower to see the Petit Village de Paques (bunnies! A six foot tall Easter egg!), we made our way to Darty – the French equivalent of Best Buy or Circuit City – on the off chance it would be open, in search of a replacement carafe.

The fleet of gated and locked storefronts all along the way dimmed our hopes, but when we got to Darty the automatic doors parted – oh happy day – and we strolled into an empty store staffed by half a dozen employees all wearing the expression you would have on your face if you had drawn the lot to work on a public holiday. And we had walked in with a two-year-old who promptly ran into the middle of the flat screen television display.

Nevertheless, we made our way down the escalator to the petit électromenager, where, upon scanning the wall of coffeemakers, we saw that our model was not on display. It was our first inkling that this would not be so easy. The attendant assured us that replacing the carafe – which is called a verseuse, or pourer, in French, to differentiate from the vessel you would use for water or wine – would still not be a problem, but he wondered what model it was we had in our house, chez vous. I said that it was the purple one, just like the electric teakettle on the shelf above his head.

Well then, he said, you just need to go upstairs to the cashier and tell them you need a replacement verseuse for the Philips Cucina coffemaker, in lilac (yes, we have a lilac coffemaker. And a matching electric teakettle, too). Just like that. And he waved us away with a smile. Or me, anyway – I had to go locate S and G over by the washing machines before we could go upstairs to the cashier station.

When we got upstairs, our reception by the two men manning the station was much less friendly. “There are a lot of Philips coffeemakers,” said the first. “Do you have the réference (model number)?

“The man downstairs told me to tell you it was the one in lilac,” I said.

“That doesn’t help me,” said the other man, who was looking at the computer screen. “I need the réference.”

“I don’t have it,” I said, “but I could show you the model.”

“Couldn’t you just order it on the website?” said man number one. (I did not ask him why it was not possible to check the website, in the store, for the reference. Such things are futile.)

“I’ll just go downstairs and see if the other guy knows the réference,” I said, not entirely politely. This time S and G had migrated to the telephone display, so I fetched them again and said to S, “I think you’re going to have to handle this one from now on. I haven’t had my coffee yet, and I can’t be held responsible if I say something grumpy.”

“No problem,” he answered. G was thrilled to ride the escalator again.

Downstairs, I corralled the same attendant who had helped us before, in passing, and said that upstairs they had asked me for the réference.

“Really?” he said. “And you told them it was the one in lilac?”

Indeed.

“Well, then, just tell them it’s the soixante-quinze-quatre-vingt-deux.” (I write out the numbers here because to my American ear that sounds like sixty-fifteen-four-twenty-two, while the number we needed eventually to transfer to the cashier was 7582. And still. No. Coffee. Because we were there to replace the coffee pot. I make my point.)

S confirmed the number and went back to the cashier, while I took Gus to the TV display, where approximately one hundred television were showing the trailer for the Lord of The Rings. The battle scene was probably too much for a two-year-old, but the horses had him riveted in his tracks and so I decided to let it rest.

Five minutes later, S arrived carrying a small cardboard box. We opened it with trembling fingers, but alas, it was not the carafe that goes with our coffee maker.

I went back to the cashier. “This is not a match for our coffee pot,” I said.

“It is not the coffee pot you have chez vous?”

“No, it is not,” I said.

“But that is the soixante-quinze-quatre-vingt-deux.”

“But it is not my coffee-pot.”

“Then you will have to go home and get the réference.” He made the little French gesture, usually so charming, that is a small shrug with the palms lifted up, that means ‘there is nothing else I can do.’

S had noticed downstairs in the appliance display a shelf of orphaned coffee carafes of various shapes and sizes. “There’s one that looks kind of like ours,” he said. “It’s four euros. Let’s grab it and get out of here.”

And so we did, with only ten more minutes and one bloody nose on the escalator to show for our pain. We walked home in growing sunshine and G sat on S’s shoulders and sang the itsy-bitsy spider at the top of his lungs. The plane trees along the Allée Maria Callas were beginning to bud. I gave the baby his pacifier and decided it was warm enough to take off my scarf.

At home, I settled into an arm chair with last week’s New Yorker while S went back into the kitchen. Thirty seconds later, he appeared at my side and kissed me on the top of the head.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked.

“Yes, much,” I answered.

“Not so grumpy?”

“I think I’m over it.”

He smiled. “Because the coffee carafe doesn’t fit.”