Prix Choc!!!!!!!

When I was in France as a student many, many years ago some of my American classmates remarked wryly that there was no French word for cheap. It’s true. If you want to say something doesn’t cost much in French, you say it’s “pas cher”, which means “not dear”. Even back in 1996, the greenback didn’t get you very far in France, but that’s not the point. The point was that the French are more or less accustomed to paying through the nose for things and the concept of “cheap” is not that ingrained here.

Maki and I have noticed that in shops around Paris they like to advertise items on sale by putting a label that says “prix choc”, usually followed by lots of exclamation points!!!!! So naturally I remarked that for the French, it is indeed shocking to not pay an arm and a leg for something. This last Saturday at our local Monoprix we saw lots of things with “prix choc” but I actually found them shockingly expensive. If these prices are considered low enough to be shocking, then I imagine that a French person would go into cardiac arrest when entering a place like, say, Wal Mart. Luckily for us there’s a Giga Store across the street, which likes to bill itself as “le paradis du pas cher”. Can you imagine that as a slogan: the paradise of the not dear?

OK, enough whingeing about how expensive everything is. It could be worse: it could be London. Besides, when I go back to Miami at the end of June with my Euros I'm sure I'll be living large.