Story Time (it's long and will put you to sleep) - L'Heure d'une Histoire (c'est longue et va te faire dormir)

So here we are - Dec. 15 - and I am finally, after many discussions deliberating about delay, posting my second post. Today marks a special day for many reasons. 1) My old post reached 25 comments, thus I am writing this second post, and 2) I talked with someone from France in France and in French for the first time in about a year. I was quite an experience. Yesterday at work, my supervisor told me that we have an invoice that we need to pay and that we have had some trouble communicating with the vendor - the French vendor. All previous attempts had failed - whether from the language barrier or the long distance separating us, I don't know. But I do know that I am the only one that speaks French in my department and they decided to utilize that asset. So after she broke the news to me, I was excited and nervous. It was hard to get to sleep last night.

SIDE NOTE: Have you ever tried to go to bed at 7:30pm? I did it this past week or so and I must admit - it is quite nice. Pulling on some nice warm socks and bundling up in the covers. Socks are a necessity and I can't sleep with my feet exposed - hence one of the reasons why I am looking forward to McSomethingkins' Christmas present. Thanks in advance, Something.

So I wake up this morning and riffle through my French/English dictionary looking for words I might have to use. I end up bringing it with me to work. I show up 10 minutes early and listen to the French radio just to make sure that I haven't forgotten what it sounds like (that really didn't help because it was news radio and they were talking about something way over my head like politics or something just as annoying that I know little about and even littler French vocabulary). So I give up on that just as my supervisor shows up and says we should get started. So we sit down at the phone and realize that we don't know how to call France. So we spend five minutes trying to figure it out from experimentation, on-line sources, and the University's help line. So we figure it out and dial the number. This lady answers with one of those unreal voices that seem like you are calling some infomercial or talking to an airline stewardess. She was uncannily nice and very clear. The conversation goes fine until we get close to the end and she rattles something off that I am sure she has repeated a million times like she is a car insurance representative or something. I missed it - and all those lessons I learned from the mission to ask if you don't understand something just flew out the window. Hopefully it was unimportant and we get a receipt in the mail.