This may be my last post for a while, maybe the last one in your lifetime, if this job I'm chasing comes through.
On the other hand, maybe you've already read my Great American Novel that I wrote before you were born or my classic memoir based on my professional experiences as a time-traveler.
We'll have to see. It's an exciting opportunity though, so wish me luck.
Expat life has changed enormously since my first move to Paris nearly 17 years ago.
First of all – and really chew on this one for a while – not everyone had Internet access 17 years ago. In fact, I'm fairly sure that I got my first public email account – one that people outside my company could send to – after I came back from that first one-year stint.
Sending email home instead of letters, reading American newspapers online, electronic tax filing and illegally or legally downloading American TV shows: all impossible a mere 17 years ago.
Second, the invention of the DVD player means watching English-language movies in English. And there are so many other life-giving examples: ordering English-language books from Amazon to remote locations where we don't have English-language bookstores. Googling around for the absolute cheapest fare. And the changes are not only technological: 17 years ago, hardly any French person had even heard of Halloween, marching in a Gay Pride parade or celebrating Chinese New Year in Paris was virtually unthinkable, plus you couldn't find peanut butter, fajita mix or Ocean Spray cranberry juice in any French grocery store.
But one thing hasn't changed about expat life. When you're an English-speaker in France and you're job-hunting, you still go pick up a copy of Fusac, the English-language classified ad-rag distributed throughout Paris.
Which I did recently because I'm still an English-speaking job-hunter in France. Come to think of it, that hasn't changed either.
Wanted: Someone to go back in time with me.
This is not a joke. Write to
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You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed.
I have only done this once before.
Must bring my own weapons? Well, I have been told I have an extremely sharp tongue. I hope that counts. Payment when we get back? Honey, I'm a freelancer. That's better terms than the normal "payment when we damn well feel like it." And my safety is not guaranteed? Well, I'm a middle-aged, underemployed American woman living in a small town in France. I think I know how to take care of myself.
The only thing that bothers me is that the ad specifies going back in time...does that mean there's no fast-forward button on the time-travel machine doohickey, thingamajig? Because, if not, then how exactly are we supposed to get back?
And if there is, couldn't we go forward in time instead? I mean, isn't that where the real mysteries lay?
I mean, what happened in the past that we absolutely must know more about? Who really killed Kennedy, I suppose. Those Easter Island statue things. Atlantis. I guess that would be cool. But I really hope we can steer the time machine to avoid the whole Black Plague era. Actually, the Ice Ages are a turn-off for me too. Oh, and corsets. I don't want to take this job and end up wearing a corset. Or a Dorothy Hamill haircut. Or the Farrah either. That's just out…I can always give English lessons if this job means a Farrah.
In fact, frankly, now that we're talking about it, fantasy future employer, the whole idea of traveling back in time is feeling kind of been there, done that already.
After all, if you live long enough, you can just remember lots of stuff and that's pretty damn close to time travel, isn't it? Only with wrinkles.
So, if you hire me, I'd really like to propose that we travel forward in time. Sure, there's the off-chance of post-apocalyptic ruin and radioactive clouds covering the earth's surface. But, on the other hand, they may have personal flying machines like in the Jetsons. Or a cellulite cream that really works. Geez, if that's true, you don't even have to pay me, just let me bring some tubes of that back in my carry-on.
.
Whatever. It's got to be better than the Black Plague or corsets.
I really hope I get this job. Otherwise, I'm going to end up time-traveling the old-fashioned way. It's called living. It works okay but it's just, like, really time-consuming.
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