Les Belles Jambes

I fell last week, which isn't particularly interesting in itself, but the patching-up process was kind of funny.

Plus, check out all the great vocabulary I learned from the experience:

un pansement = bandage
un kit de secours = first aid kit
une cicatrice = scar
un genou = knee
lache = loose

I fell in the parking lot of the Auchan, the large grocery store not far from my work. I was in a hurry and was trotting to my car, and stupid me, I was running in heels. I gashed up both knees and the heel of one hand. My pride took the biggest hit, however, because when was the last time you saw a full grown adult take a spill of such a nature?

The woman who scraped me off of the pavement happened to be a colleague from work, and lucky for me she had a first aid kit in her car. The damage to my right knee was so bad, however, that she could only tape a bit of gauze to it and send me straight back to the office infirmary.

Well the infirmary happened to be closed that day, so I made it through the rest of the day and drove my battered self home with David. He cleaned up my wounds and put a loose bandage over the wound to let it breathe. Then he sat back and proceeded to describe the different phases a scraped knee will go through. The scabbing, the pussing, etc.

"I'm a boy" he explained. "We have these things all the time".

The next day I wore a skirt to keep air circulating to the cut. The loose bandage looked a bit silly hanging off my knee, and I received a few inquiring looks. I mastered the verb conjugation for "I fell".

Well it wasn't long before the first phase of the healing began and I could feel an oozing down my leg. Disgusting, I know. The bandage wasn't cutting it anymore, so I hobbled to the infirmary and made noises alluding to a bandage change.

The nurse tut tutted at David's handiwork and proceeded to open packages of anesthetic and bandages. She cleaned the wound again, then applied a sort of thick sticker to the wound. She explained that it served as a second skin, and I must use it to avoid having a cicatrice. Then she put a large transparent sticker over it to make it waterproof. Maybe because I've never seen a medical doctor for a scraped knee before, but I was duly impressed.

"Don't use bandages" she warned as she escorted me to the door. "You must use these. For les belles jambes". For beautiful legs.

My cool new patch only lasted until the end of the day, when it too started leaking. I stopped at a pharmacy on my way home and pointed to my knee. "I need some of these."

The pharmacist put together a set of boxes and charged me a very un-French-like outrageous number of euros for them.

"You must use these" she urged. "You don't want a scar. For les belles jambes."

This country sure does have its priorities straight.