From Paris, with love…. I think.

For a long time now, a friend of Christophe’s would call the house.  The phone conversation would go something like this:

Me: Hello?

Friend: Hi!  It’s Bob.  I’m calling from Paris.

Then, I would give the phone to Christophe telling him Bob is calling us from Paris.  The problem was, Bob was never in Paris, but enough time has passed that I could not nonchalantly ask, “What, where are you?  I don’t understand.”  So, I would simple ignore it and give Christophe the phone.

Christophe finally explained it to me.  This is what was said on the phone:

Me: Hello?

Friend: Hi!  It’s Bob.  I’m calling you from the apparatus.

You see, à l’appareil sounds a heck of a lot like Paris (do your best French accent here) on the phone.

The translation: Bob is calling me from that new-fangled do-hickey thing (the apparatus) that sits in his living room, and he’s letting me know it.

Bob is a bit older than me, so that “apparatus” that sits in his living room is still something new.  This is nothing you would hear from someone who grew up with phones and computers.  It would be as if I wrote:

Hi Jane!  It’s Lynn.  I’m emailing you on the internet.

I half want to try this phrase out just to see what reaction I’d get.  Regardless, I’m glad to finally understand it and to realize that not all our friends have high tailed it to Paris and have decided to call us to let us know that.