On the telephone

I did procure a prepay phone and a SIM card this afternoon, braving an out-the-door line at a shop on the Champs-Elysées between castings to wrangle the device. The phone-seekers were mingling with the smokers on the pavement when I joined the queue; to its credit, the shop had staff everywhere but it still took me 30 minutes to wait my turn for help. The store clerk was speedy in showing me the phones available for purchase when buying a SIM card, I asked him what the cheapest handsets were, said, “I want the black one,” and off we marched to the counter.

It was at this point I realised where the flaw in the system lay: Buying a phone in France involves paperwork. The recondite store filing system demands yellow documents in duplicate, delivered to different folders in different drawers, and white documents in original ink stapled to receipts and folded carefully for posterity, and if one wants to buy a SIM card, a phone, and some airtime with which to speak on the phone, one must wait in a separate line for the airtime, pass a request form provided by the person at the checkout of the phone line to the person at the checkout of the airtime line, and then return to one’s original red-shirted checkerouter, before waiting while some more forms are completed and the final tally prints. Then you have to sign the tally. I think one copy of it might have been wax-sealed and stamped by a live-in notary with a repetitive stress injury, but thankfully they must keep the notary in the basement, because he didn’t hold me up. And then you pay.

This gave my checkerouter plenty of time to check me out. Note his phone number, which he cannily inscribed on the back of one of the forms (for simplicity’s sake, I left the yellows and whites and stapled receipts out of the picture and in the shopping bag, where I intend to leave them forever). What a smooth move. He said he was a nightclub promoter, and — omg! — he totally guessed my new profession on his first chance (I don’t look that much like a model already, do I?). John. J-O-H-N. (I love it when foreigners Anglicise their names to make me feel more comfortable, it’s dreamy.)

On second thoughts, I think that photo makes my phone look fat. This one makes my hand look mottled and purple, but it shows the downright enviable tininess and slimness of the phone to full advantage.

The one good thing about the process? In France, cellphones are sensibly given half a battery charge so you can use them out of the box with no fumbling for the cord. How thoughtful.