This expression is what I was internally screaming to myself last Wednesday sitting in a notary's office on the Port of Nice.
Allow me to explain.
I needed a letter notarized for one of my many "business endeavors" in the States. Funnily enough, I went to a notary. And here's where things get a little "Slumber Party".
I walk in. A receptionist greets me. I tell her I have a letter I need notarized (I said "notarizé", since the French word for notary is "notaire", I figured I was ok). I got the blank stare and the up-ended eyebrows. I tried again.
"um, you know, like stamped? you know, the notary stamps it, to make it legal? Certified?" I start throwing out any and all verbs I can come up with. More tense eyebrows. Then she looks at Estelle, like the baby's gonna know the word.
She says "let me go and ask someone."
Boding unwell for me, I think. She disappears. I stand in the reception area, Estelle strapped to my chest in the carrying scarf, staring at an enormous wall mural painted behind the reception desk, all of the Port of Nice, very colorful and detailed and interesting. She comes back. "Please, you can wait in the waiting room over there." I say "Actually I'm really enjoying looking at your mural." She leaves, but then turns and walks back thru to another doorway. She ducks into a hallway. She comes back and hands me a greeting card with the wall mural printed on it. I am impressed. Boding well for me, I think. She smiles. She leaves again.
2 minutes later she returns with another woman. "Please follow me." I step into another office. She's a 30-some-odd woman. "Now, what exactly do you need?" I repeat exactly what it is I need, letter by letter. "Humm......" I say, finding myself funny "Um, this IS a notary office, right? You like, you know, NOTARIZE things here?" The girl is almost upended by this question and says "okay, so all you need the notary to do is stamp you letter and look at your passport to certify it is you?" Now we are getting somewhere, I think. So I have to make an appointment to see the notary. For the next day. I ask "What will the charge be?" She says "um, I don't know, but not much. Maybe he will do it for free." "Great" I say.
Back I come the next day, armed with all my documentation, and Estelle in my scarf. I am shown the waiting room. Two different women come in and seperately ask me EXACTLY what it is that I want. I tell them I have a letter which is going to America and I need it certified that I wrote it, and that I am me. Puzzled, they leave. They come back. They start photocopying everything I have. Twice. They scrutinize dates. They ask to read the letter. I hand it over. They leave. They stop midstride. They come back. "But this letter is in English." "Yes." We all have a moment in the waiting room, broken only by the sound of Estelle slurping on her fingers. Slurp. Slurp. Estelle looks at the women, then at me. Slurp.
They leave. 2 minutes later, a man walks by. Everyone is scared of him, I can tell. He is very authoritative, and he walks like an American - no time to waste. One woman say "Master, she's right in the waiting room." The other woman nervously trails him, tripping on her too tall boots. "Master, here are the copies of her documents." To what do my wondering ears should appear, but a man with women calling him master? It's 9:45 am, and I'm having one of those surreal moments in France, with no one to share it with.
He says "Madam, if you'll come this way." And off we go, into his office which resembles a vault, covered with massive canvases of modern art, huge high ceilings, leather chairs litterred about. I'm thinking about the woman at my old office in DC who used to pull her notary stamp out of her bottom draw where she kept her coffee filters. Something is awry.
I am asked to explain, once again, what it is that I need, and why. I do. He looks over the passport, then presses a stamp across my letter, and then rolls a massive blotter right out of some Masterpiece Theater episode over the ink. I thank him. I have been in the office 2 minutes. He curls him fingers from each hand in an interlock over his desk. "You've been told of our fee structure?" I say "Well, yes, as a matter of fact I asked yesterday and your clerk told me she thought maybe it was free." A shadow crossed his face, and without a flinch he said "Madam, that is not the case. This is a legal service, thus you are to be charged the minimum fee for any basic legal service, which is 60 euros."
This is where my bi-lingual brain has to count outloud in my head, like I'm in some acid-trip version of The Electric Company. I can see the figures floating around in the air in front of my face. Estelle gurgles. Did he just say 60 Euros? Like, Come Again? "Oh." I say. What can I do? The deed is done, I need the document.
60 euros is like, well, about 75 dollars. Which explains why he has so much modern art, and women running about calling his Master. Apparently, life is good if you are a French notary. No coffee filters in your drawer, no sir. At least I got a free greeting card out of it. Dang.
