les femmes âgées

Once a week I tutor an elderly French woman named Eliane. She is a widow and lives all alone in a big apartment in Bastille. Her daughter and grand children live in Pennsylvania and she wanted to improve her english so she could talk to her grand kids. Over the months I became more of her personal assistant/odd-job do-er than tutor. Today we had to compose an email to an eye institute in Los Angeles explaining her condition and establishing me as her contact person.

Her friend arrived halfway through to photograph her apartment for a rental agency. Eliane then asked me to help her put the photos on her computer. I explained to her, and to her elderly friend, that it would be much faster and easier if I uploaded them on my computer and did the email from there. But of course, being the stubborn French woman that she is, Eliane insisted we do it on her computer.

So the three of us meander to the back room and I have a feeling I know what I am getting myself into. The laptop (which I am pretty sure was purchased in the 90's, early 2000's at best) is dusty and slow as hell, not to mention French. We wait (for about 5 minutes) for the thing to start up. Eliane (who is almost blind) painstakingly accesses her email by using a gigantic magnifying glass, while her friend peaks over her shoulder to help her find the right one that we need to respond to. I then have to write down the email address and person's name so both of them don't forget. Once this huge task is accomplished, they have me settle down and begin to write the email...

Eliane decides she wants to share the chair with me so she can see better. So the two of us are squeezed together and I have to lean to the left in order to avoid her magnifying glass and protruding elbow as she leans in, nose almost touching the screen, as well as try and type this email. Both of them start telling me what to say (in rapid French) and then arguing over the content/placement of the sentences. Meanwhile, I am typing all of this, and rapidly deleting, because the French keyboard is extremely different and I have to pause and make sure I am on the right letters. Eliane sees this and thinks I don't know how to spell the words. So she starts  saying each letter, like "Merci. M, E, R..." I say, "Eliane, I know how to spell 'Merci,' I just keep hitting the wrong keys." But then she forgets a few sentences later and starts spelling the letters again, while her friend is leaning over me with her breasts pressed against my back so she can see what is going on and also make sure I am writing everything correctly. Once the body of the email has been fought over and agreed upon, we move on to downloading the photos. Guess how long that takes? 5 minutes. We sit there.

Once the photos have been retrieved we have to attach them. Let me inform you that this is a PC (of course) and I have a mac. So I am dealing with a slow, dusty, French PC circa 1900's and two old, blind french woman pressed against me telling me how to work it. I cannot figure out how save the photos on the computer and then find and attach them to this godforsaken email that has taken twenty minutes to do. So all three of us are talking at once, pouring over this ancient computer, and this random woman's breasts keep rubbing up and down my back and Eliane keeps taking the mouse from me and hitting me with her elbow. Long story short, Eliane realized that I had been there for 30 extra minutes, felt terrible, and shooed me out the door. I am pretty sure they are still there, huddled over that PC, arguing over how to get the pictures onto the email, noses and magnifying glass pressed to the screen.