What happens when your Midnight in Paris turns into Nightmare on Elm Street?
You go shopping.
The toilet had now been blocked for 5 days. This wouldn’t have been a problem if the closest working toilet wasn’t on the roof of our apartment.
To add to the excitement, the spare toilet had no toilet seat and a timer generated light that went off after 60 seconds
Please tell me who on earth can do anything in that amount of time?
So there we were at approximately 3 am, huddled on the roof after The Crazy Horse taking turns peeing with the door slightly ajar so that one of us could stick our hand in and reset the timer when the lights went out.
Oh Paris the city of love!
The next morning we awoke, hungover and freezing cold.
The heater had stopped working. Instead of complaining we all sat there in silence.
“I know somewhere warm” said one of the girls with a suspicious look on her face.
“Where?” I asked cradling a cup of tea.
“Louboutin.”
The Cristian Louboutin flagship store in Saint Germain is one of the original boutiques and the busiest!
So it helped that we just happened to get there right on open.
A dapper looking doorman ushered us in and all of a sudden we were transported to another world.
I looked down at my $20 pair of Rivers boots that I had packed just in case it got cold.
It almost felt wrong to be in here wearing 'leather upper’.
Fuck it. Who’s going to notice?
I picked the classic Fifi matte pump off the display.
“Do you have this in the shiny patent size 38 please?” I said feeling hopeful.
“Sorry Madame we only get one size of the gloss and unfortunately it has already been sold,”
Isn’t funny how when someone tells you that something is sold out you want it more than ever.
“We do however have your size in the matte, would you like to try?”
Why not.
He disappeared behind the counter for several minutes.The store was now buzzing with colourful French characters: a striking young couple, an older French woman and her little dog, a staunch man in a black suit, and us typical Aussie girls.
“Here is the Fifi” he sang reappearing in front of me.
As he opened the box a shiny gloss caught my eye. These were not the matte black heels he had described. They were glossy!
“They must be in the wrong box” he said taking them off me to inspect the shoes.
“But you’re in luck! They’re 38 and gloss!”
I took off my Rivers and slipped on the luxury. They fit perfectly.
“It’s meant to be!” the little man said brimming with excitement. The girls were equally as giddy.
It’s mean to be was a line I had used countless times working in retail to get those tough customers over the line, but as I stared down at the almost magical shoes and envisioned myself walking down Circular Quay back in Sydney to meet Mr P.S I thought…
Give them to me! It's meant to be!!
And then he told me the price.
We all huddled around my iPhone to work out the Australian dollar conversion.
"465 Euros is 673 Aussie dollars” I said unsure of whether that was a good or not.
“I’ve seen that exact shoe in David Jones for $1,100 Australian dollars!” said one of the girls.
“Yeah and you can get tax back at the airport.” said the other.
If you’re crazy enough your mind will eventually convince you to buy anything.
So it’s basically half price if I buy them in Paris right?
Let’s just leave it at that.
I took a deep breath in and handed over my credit card and my passport.
Ouch. That one’s going to hurt.
We decided to ditch the pastries and celebrate with something even more French....
Escargot s’il vous plait!
And that's the story of how I purchased my very first pair of Christian Louboutins.
A tale of a blocked toilet, Rivers boots and some delicious snails.
Next up a recount of my final day in Paris...Eiffel Tower here I come.
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