flyingnakedtofu

Manning's post about bizarre moments where you wonder how your life turned out to be so absurd reminded me of my best story yet in France. Two days ago, I took my mother to the Eiffel Tower. Of course this is something everyone who is in France wants to see and I think my mother is the only person left who could convince me to go over there with her. After gazing from afar with a group of tourists, I needed to go back to my real life in France so we headed to the Metro. When coming into the closest metro stop, it was completely packed with tourists. Everyone who knows me here knows that I do not pay for metro tickets unless it seems like a bad idea to jump. I felt kind of nervous about the situation but after doing a quick scan for the metro police and realizing I only had one ticket, I decided that I would "tailgate" my mother (pass with her through the bar and only use one ticket.)
As soon as I passed through the bar I looked up to be greeted by a wall of metro police. The biggest one started coming at me yelling "Mademoiselle!" I had just as soon passed as I had jumped back over the bar and began running back out the metro station to avoid my 50 euro fine. I was half way in mid sprint when I realized that I had just left my mother in the metro with a group of French metro police. My mother, without a cell phone, who didn't have my address on her and did not speak French. I had plenty of time to think about this while hiding behind a bunch of cars, next to the metro station, around the corner from the Eiffel Tower.
I would have to say that was when I realized that my life had become completely strange. So in a panic, I called my friend Melvina who I had been just hanging out with for advice. She thought the situation was as equally bizarre but now the predicament:
I am out side the metro, safe from the 50 euro fine, my mother is somewhere underground with a group of mean French men.
So how do I get her with out getting caught? I could imagine my mother freaking out and telling them I was her crazy daughter and she didn't speak French... all the bad situations were spinning in my head. Melvina put it right, "Carly, you have to fess up and go get your mom."
So, I waited 10 minuets to see if she would come out, no luck. So I headed back down to the tube to face my fine. I uneasily scurried down the metro line trying to see what was going on. As soon as I got back to where I was, there were so many tourists, I could not see a thing. I finally saw my mother standing next to the exit door. She appeared to be alone, so I just pointed to the exit door mouthing, "let's go!"
She hurried to the exit. As soon as she was out I began to run. "I think one of the security guards saw me, run, run!"
So me and my mother were running in the Paris metro from the Police. We got to the top, safe.
So,", I asked her, " did they ask you any questions, what happened?!"
"No!", she said," I just played dumb and acted like I had no idea who you were and held up my ticket. They didn't ask me any thing!"
I think thats when I just started laughing really really hard. I got away from the metro police in a foreign country , witch is completely un herd of, and I did it with my mother. My life has gotten very strange.