The Stuff of My [Coffee] Dreams

Our assignment this week was to write a mini-story pangram, in which every sentence begins with the successive letter of the alphabet.  Don’t ask me where I got the idea for this ramble.  It just kind of came in to my head and formed itself as I went along.  And for clarification, this is not written from a personal experience; I’ve never been to Paris, nor do I like coffee. ;P  

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All my life, I’ve longed to go to Paris.  Believe me – it’s been my dream since I was at least eight.  Considering that I’m only sixteen, now, I guess that’s only been eight years, but that’s beside the point.  Dad and Mom finally decided to let me go this year with my aunt (she’s a single travel agent!), determining I was mature enough to leave home for an entire week.    Everything in me jumped up and down for joy when Mom first mentioned she was thinking about it.    Fortunately for her, I was having my teeth cleaned at the dentist at the time and couldn’t jump and down – or hug her – or beg and plead– I mean, thank her.

Getting back to the story, Aunt Emilia and I flew out of Atlanta directly to Paris.  Have you ever been on an eight hour flight with an in-training service dog yipping behind you almost unceasingly?  If you haven’t, I wouldn’t recommend it.  Jet lag and the inability to sleep well because one is dreaming about Terrier Stew do not add up to a positive number, I discovered.

Knowing that, the first thing we did when we finally found the airport exit was to hail a cab and try to communicate that we wanted to go the Holiday Inn Express.  Luckily, the driver spoke English, because I don’t think Aunt Em spoke real French.    Midnight in Paris was 6:00 AM on our Eastern Standard body clocks.  Needless to say, we really needed to go to sleep.  Once we got to our hotel and found Room 357, we piled our suitcases on the floor and ourselves on the beds.  Pillows in hotels are so nice and soft – and they don’t bark.

Quite late the next day – 2:34 PM, to be exact – I woke up.    Remembering I was in Paris took only one glance at Aunt Em’s pile of travel brochures scattered on the desk by the window.  She was still asleep, though, flopped on top of the covers with her polka-dotted scarf in her hand.  Tiptoeing across the room, I found my camera in my carry-on and snapped a picture of her to put in the amazing scrapbook of the trip that I have yet to make.    Unfortunately, the shutter click woke Aunt Em up, and my ‘morning’ stillness was broken.

Very much in need in of some caffeine, we made ourselves presentable and went down to the continental breakfast on a coffee hunt.    Who would have guessed there were so many things you could sweeten your hot beverage with?  Xylitol, Splenda, Stevia, and two or three different brands of sugars stared up intimidatingly at me from the counter.  “You’re on vacation in a land of food connoisseurs,” I chided myself at my indecision, “so put in as much sweet stuff as you like.”

“Zis is zee way to begin a Parisian adventure,” I told Aunt Emilia in my best French accent as I stirred in three creamers and four packets of sugar.

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And sorry if my xylitol is a bit of a stretch.  X is difficult letter!