Rambling along - the menu

There’s this guy lives in the village, nice guy - I like him. Ok, I don’t know his name but I had dinner with him once at a mutual friends and I say hello every time I  see him.

Well, I say bonjour – he’s French, but it’s the same thing.

Well, not the same thing EXACTLY but you say it…. Look, I’m friendly, ok.

Anyway, he runs the local antique shop.

It’s a brilliant place, a sort of old factory with a sort of upstairs terrace inside, it would be perfect for a production of Romeo and Juliet, at least the balcony scene anyway.

But, although I like this guy, his stuff -  antiques mainly -  is overpriced.

Least, I think so.

But someone seems to buy things from him.

I went in once and he had this rusty old metal table, circular, with a couple of chairs.

I needed a rusty old circular table with a couple of chairs for a garden corner so I asked him how much he wanted.

I can’t remember the exact figure but it was about four times the price of a brand new red set that the local garden centre was selling.

“That’s about four times the price of the brand new red set that the local garden centre is selling”, I said.

“Well, if you want to buy crap made in China by underpaid and exploited workers and ruin the French economy, go ahead,” he replied.

This was before we became friends over a lasagne.

Fair enough though.

He had a point.

I bought the red set.

The other day I drove past his theatre of antiques and I saw a really nice life size chef menu holder standing outside.

You know the thing? A wooden cut out restaurant chef painted and lifelike holding a black board menu thingy that you can chalk the day’s special on that you used to see standing outside the restaurants in the villages of France.

It would look perfect in my inside-outside room, but I knew it would be expensive so I walked on past.

A week later it was still there.

It still looked perfect for my inside-outside room, I could put it next to my red table, chalk up coffee and croissant, run into the house, make them, bring them back, sit down and eat them.

But I walked on past.

A week later, it was still there.

Hmmm, I thought, not much demand for life size chef menu holders around here then.

So I figured I’d risk it – after all he was my friend now.

I calculated that I could stretch to 20 euro.

“Hello, I mean Bonjour, how much do you want for the wood-wormed remnant of the failure of French capitalism in the face of McDonald’s aggressive imperialism?”

“170 euro.”

I drove past again this week; it was no longer there.

Someone around here has more money than I.