Day 138: Almost Get Arrested in France.

Last night Sébastien had taken my mother and I out for dinner during her 36 hour layover near her hotel in the 13th. It was unexpected because we had invited him and me being used to deadbeat boyfriends figured either me or my mom would foot the bill, so it was a lovely change. When is he going to turn and stop being so fabulous? His amazing qualities are starting to scare me. By now, my boyfriends have showed their true asshole colors but he just continues to be a wonderful person. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to be? Who knew? Certainly not me...
Sébastien, being a bit shy and my mother being a extremely overbearing posed somewhat of a challege over dinner where I had to keep the conversation flowing to balance out the French and English, so no one felt left out. Dinner with my mom and Monsieur Flâneur was always a bit easier because he flat out didn't speak English (which he made no apologies for) so translating was expected of me and I got quite good at quickly bouncing back and forth between the two languages. With Séb, he does speak English and I don't want to insult him with translations where there are moments when I don't know if his silence means that he didn't understand or simply didn't know how to respond. With my mom, both possibilities are conceivable making dinner a bit tricky. I can tell my mom likes him or at least wants to like him because proposed dessert and coffee at the hotel restaurant before Séb and I vespa'd back to The Marais.
We walked into the chicly decorated hotel restaurant bar and sat ourselves on a plush velour couch to peruse the dessert and cocktail menu. From the corner of my eye, I noticed a small congregation of servers closely discussing something while looking over at us. Having been a server myself, this discussion looked far more intense than the typical server chat of who would take the table. There seemed to be some anxiety in their body language and facial expressions. Sébastien and my mom didn't realize this and were chatting lightly about the menu and laughing at my mom's French pronunciation. I then saw the manager go to the circle of servers and was intently listening while also looking over at us. What was going on? Was there something on my face? No. Was my mom underdressed? No. Were we sitting at a reserved table? No. A server then came over and asked to speak to my mom. My mom who as we all know doesn't speak French, looked at me. "What's the problem, sir?" I politely asked him. "The problem is that you and your mother did not pay for your check the last time you were here." he said sternly with several servers and the manager behind me like a waitstaff mafia. I looked at Sébastien whose eyes widened at hearing this. Naturally, he was horrified. His new girlfriend and her mother were accused of dining and ditching. Oh. my. god.
To be honest, there is an element of truth to this accusation but please allow me to explain. And no, Katie is not rubbing off on me, there is a valid explanation here. The last time my mom and I were at the hotel, last week, for 45 minutes, we could not get the server's attention for the check of the quiche that we split and it was getting late. My mom needed to sleep before working an 8 hour flight the next morning. Having waved him down several times where my requests went ignored, I walked over to the busboy and asked if he could just print out the check for us. The busboy who didn't speak English or French just looked at me. I pulled out the post-it pad that I keep in my purse and wrote "Chambre 505" for him to give to the server to charge the room. Unfortunately, the server was no where to be found so I couldn't point to him to clarify the request but he looked at me and nodded. It should have been enough. Famous last words. "Did you tell him?" my mom asked on our way to the elevator. "Yeah, but I don't think he understood, so I wrote it down." I responded. "Ok, it should be fine, they have my card on file. I just want to go to sleep." my now groggy mother said. It's sad but my mom is getting old and these long flights are beating her up more and more. As much as I love seeing her here, what I really want is for her to retire soon. I know she is going to kill me for writing that but it's the truth. I want her to stop smoking and to stop working. There I said it.
The following morning at check-out, my mom realized that the quiche dinner was not on the bill and my mom being an honest person (A pain, yes. A schemer, no.) told the reception what had happened and if they had the bill. The receptionist said that nothing had been reported from the night before and that it's fine. Being in France where customer service has yet to be invented, the receptionist obviously didn't feel like investigating any further and just handed my mom the incomplete bill for her to sign. Ok. My mom informed her that she would be back the following week and to keep the card on file to charge her should the bill come to surface. The receptionist nodded and smiled. "It's for them, not me! Holy Shit! I'm practically begging to pay that bill!" she said while loading her suitcase in the employee bus going to Charles de Gaulle. Since my mom comes to this hotel once a week she wanted this settled one way or another.
Clearly, nothing was communicated and the server had to pay the 20euros check and was looking at my mother and I like we were low class thieves and had even mumbled something about the police. The police?! That, my mom understood! "I'm going to French jail over the theft of the Quiche Lorraine?" she cried. "Well at least let me order another glass of wine before dealing with this!" What the server actually said was that he could call the police not that he was going to. My mom understands French nouns preferably cognates, so she reacted to the one word that is internationally understood; police. 
This was supposed to be the official meeting of my mother and new boyfriend and it was just horrible. I explained to the unsympathetic server what had happened last week and to please bring us the bill where we would sign for it. Sébastien didn't seem terribly phased by what had happened, either that or he has a good poker face but as soon as he excused himself to go to the men's room, my mother grabbed my arm. "I'm mortified!" she said completely embarrassed by what had happened. "Me too." I agreed. "He thinks we pulled a Shady Katie!" she announced. "Oh my god, don't even say her name. Now I feel really low." I said with my hands rubbing my temple. Just the sound of her name stresses me. S