Allo ... c'est moi, ici!

 

Have you ever wished you could take a holiday from being yourself? You know, being someone else but not you. Act totally differently from the same old same old you? 

 

Perhaps take a day off work and go to a town or city where no one knows you and pretend to be someone else. Perhaps speak in a different accent. Or dress as a down-and-out and mix for a while with the homeless to get to experience better how they feel. Or maybe be an angel and buy them food and coffee. 

 

Have you really never wished you were someone else for the day; anyone but you?
 

I like the French; and one day I decided to be French from there on. I got up in the morning, and after having a croissant for breakfast, (which I had deliberately purchased the day before), drank a black café and nearly choked myself on a Gitanes cigarette, I went out to the newsagent for my morning papers.

"Allo ..." I said to the newsagent, "Bonjour monsieur. Do you 'ave Le Monde and Paris Match pleeze?"

"Are you alright mate?" asked the newsagent having recognised me despite my beret and striped T shirt.

"Comment?" I continued in my best French accent, " 'ave you not zese publications?"

"What's the matter with you this morning?" asked the newsagent getting a little irritable, "why are you speaking in this terrible French accent?"

"Why iz it terrible?" I asked, making sure to pronounce terrible in French rather than in English, "do you not like ze French?"

"I like the French very much," he replied getting angry at my insinuation, "in fact I have a holiday home in France and we go there at least three times a year. It's you coming here this morning with your stupid hat and striped shirt pretending to be French. What's the matter with you?"

Now of course, if I am to have a holiday from being myself I had to remain in character and not go back to type as being me. So I asked him, "Do you 'ave Gitanes cigarettes?"

"No!" he growled.

"Do you 'ave Gauloises?" I continued.

"No!" he emphasised looking me straight in the eye.

"Wat cigarettes de France do you 'ave?" I asked.

"Look, I know you don't even smoke," he said. "So you either get your usual morning papers or you leave the shop right now. I'll set the dog on you!"

"Iz it a French poodle or a Papillon?" I asked. But I did not wait for a reply as he waved a baguette at me and threw a brioche which hit me at the back of the head as I left hurriedly.

This being someone else is not all it is cracked up to be. What is worse, when I got back home the dog did not recognise me and jumped at me biting me somewhere which changed my tone of voice, if not my accent, for the rest of the day.

How about you? Have you ever wished to have a holiday from being yourself and being someone else, real or imagined? Tell us who is your Walter Mitty fantasy.