Photography Perils In Paris

• November 12, 2014
• Mari Bickmore
• 2 comments

Just recently in September, my daughter, son-in-law and I were wandering through the streets of Paris and decided to tour L’Opera.  We became a little lost so we stopped to load directions on Amanda’s phone.  As we stood there, a woman came walking down the sidewalk across the street from us in full dominatrix regalia, carrying an umbrella (remember the umbrella part because it definitely plays into the story).  Now remember this is near high noon, middle of the day, and this “lady” of the evening (now remember it’s the middle of the day) struts down the sidewalk all strapped up in black leather and thigh-high stilettos   She commences to park herself right across the street from us and leans against a railing, in front of a store that I suspect sells what she is wearing among other things.  I can’t help myself…I quickly pull my phone into position to snap a photo, but at the same time I snap a car goes in front of her and some pedestrians also, so all I get is a blurred picture of a car in motion.   In any event, at that moment she whips around and comes marching toward us, at a pretty good clip I might add.  We are like “uh-oh”  “OMG” and being the naives that we are, just stood there like deer in the headlights until she was upon us talking in loud, non-stop French as I tried to understand something of what she said.  It boiled down to “I am going to call the police if you don’t delete that picture.”  But she couldn’t understand that there was no picture with her in it!  Let me tell you, she was scary in those 6-inch spiked black heels and leather.  She grabbed my phone and was going through it looking for that non-existent picture and she wanted to go through all the way to the end…all 697 pictures worth.  I finally took back my phone from this Asian Amazon and said enough is enough!  Well, as you might guess, that didn’t sit very well with her.  She grabbed my left wrist and jerked me around to face her at the same time breaking one of my favorite necklaces off and into pieces with her other hand. all those pretty pieces tinkling across the sidewalk.  In my whole life I have never been physically restrained in anger!  I was in shock…all I could think to do was try to pry her hand off my wrist and yell “you broke my frickin’ necklace!” over and over while also keeping her from digging those spiked heels into my foot or leg.  My daughter on the other hand, having been raised with three brothers, was attempting to pull her arm off me with her pointy fingernails.  I guess the claws worked because I was released and she backed away.  However, she thought it was me who scratched her and she was not a happy camper, so as I bent down to pick up the remnants of my necklace next thing i know I am being whacked in the face with the umbrella (I told you to remember that weapon) and Miss BDSM waving forearm in my face like I had broken it and shouting French obscenities.    Amanda had apparently scratcher enough to at least get her to unhand me; that’s my girl!.  In any event, that umbrella strike hurt like heck!  Right across my cheekbone on the right.  Then, of course, I’m yelling “You hit me in the face!”….over and over.  Do you think that umbrella turns into a whip?   At that point, my daughter and I were seeing red and moving toward her aggressively still shouting the same thing, but my son-in-law was gently pulling us back, trying to be the voice of reason, and all I could think of was that she hit me and it hurt and this was a Crazy person (with a capital C).  He pulled us into a clothing shop and at first they were like “you can’t stay in here,” but then I showed them where she hit me and they saw who she was, so they very nicely shut the door to keep her out and told her to go away.   I apologize for not having pictures, but we didn’t stick around long to take more.   Try to visualize this scene and wish that it had all been caught on video…which I am sure it was but nobody sent it to me.  The only appeasing factor was that Bradley reminded me that tomorrow we would wake up and still be us and she would wake up and still be a prostitute.  But we never even made it to L’Opera.

All in all, though, I did come out with a little black eye and a great story.  I also got to learn a little self-defense, after the fact, and I now know how to get someone to release my wrist should I ever have an altercation with a prostitute on the streets of Paris, or any other city I guess.  I also learned that no matter how many times you replay what you should have said and done, you can never go back and get a re-do.  Moral of this story:  When you snap a picture, run as fast as you can!  They’re not going to catch you in those heels!  Sorry there are no pictures…so I will just put in a Paris shot.