The French Connection

Imagine the French. The annoying, haughty, food, sex and fashion obsessed French. My people, I love them so. Being French is an affliction, a reward, a curse, a badge of distinction. (A distinction only if you had nothing to do with Vichy France.) Being French means you are bound, at some point in your life, to wear a beret. Those of us who are French struggle mightily against this impulse. We are French so we must wear a beret. But a beret is so, well, French. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. I have one, -- navy blue -- but where it is I'm not sure.

But I digress.

I'm here to report a curious discovery. That battery under the hood of your car? Invented by Gaston Plante, (1834-1889) as French a name as you are ever likely to hear. The year was 1859 and Monsieur Plante (Perhaps he is an ancestor of the incisive chronicler of French Canadian life, and Columbia University creative writing professor, David Plante?) was a professor of physics at the Polytechnic Association for the Development of Popular Instruction in Paris.

So when your car won't start on a bitterly cold morning, when your country has to go to war by itself, when your waistline grows ever larger because you are addicted to "fries", you know who to blame -- blame the French.

What a people. Batteries, culture, extra-marital affairs, slim, attractive, perfectly coiffed women, Les Miserables, collaborators, baguettes and fries. Viva la France!