Hubris

It’s about midnight here in Paris. The outer shutters to our window on the Marais are closed but we can still hear the muddled noise of six or so different conversations happening downstairs at the café next to our apartment. While a tangled web of German, French, and English hangs outside our comfy confines, I find myself not feeling all that comforted by my surroundings. Today was a lesson par-excellent in the meaning of the phrase “pride comes before the fall.” This morning I awoke in a good mood. I felt our jump on Paris a month before our respective schools semesters begin was going quite well. Beyond finding our apartment, setting up car service, and arranging all the other tiny little things one needs to do when moving abroad, we pre-opened a French bank account and transferred funds to it before we left the states. I also strategically procured iPhones months ago on a “GMS” network so we could “unlock” them here to use with a European mobile phone company. This morning all my/our good planning was going to be pay-off and I was feeling good about being so smart. Alas, life always has a way of making one feel like an idiot just seconds after feeling like a genius.

Stopping into the LCL bank branch that had our ATM cards waiting for us, Lisa and I proceeded to sign about 300 French legal agreements that apparently are necessary when opening a checking account. After about an hour of a half-understood conversation with the bank’s representative, he shook my cramped hand and Lisa and I were on our way to set up our new French mobile phones. But not before breaking for lunch on the Champ de Mars to eat in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Arriving to the mobile phone store after a lovely lunch, Lisa and I worked the details of new contracts out with the clerk. He asked us for one piece of information after another and eagerly typed it into the computer. Then he asked us for our bank account’s “RIB” number. I shook my head as I recalled having rejected that piece of information at the bank thinking that it was unnecessary and probably could be found on one of the 300 copies of our agreement we had on us. I was wrong on both accounts. The clerk then said we could get the number by going to an ATM down the street. I left Lisa waiting in the store as I ran to the nearest LCL bank. Armed with a six digit code the bank gave me, I confidently typed the numbers into the machine. I got an error message that I did not really understand. Again, I typed the numbers thinking I somehow mistyped. The same message appeared. Third time’s the charm, I smartly thought. Well, it turns out third time was not the charm because the machine ate our new bank card. Walking back to the store deflated, I remembered that I had the number the guy was looking for in an old email that I could access on the iphone. With a few keystrokes, Lisa and I were locked into our new contract with French carrier, all I needed to do was go home, unlock our iPhones, and insert the new sim card.

We got home from the phone store around 8PM this evening and it’s now 20 minutes passed midnight. In the roughly four hours I spent hopelessly attempting to unlock my iPhone, the only thing I was successful in doing was to break it. Something that once was infinitely useful hours ago is now utterly useless. Someone who woke with such hubris only this morning is now feeling a little crappy for having “bricked” his phone and caused the ATM to eat his bank card. Perhaps tomorrow I can get the card back from the bank and maybe even un-brick my phone at the Apple store. But tonight I suppose that I should remember that a phone is only a only phone and a card is only a card and as the months and years go by I will probably only remember my lovely lunch with Lisa in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.