We’ll Always Have Paris

Dearest Suzanne,

While it’s true that we’ll always have Paris, will we also always have the parasite we caught that glorious Saturday night when we dined in the 16th Arrondissement?

You had the Steak Tartare and I, the day-old Moules-frites, and both, it turned out, the food-borne illness that came in the form of a Giardia Duodenalis critter anxious to leave Paris, hitch a ride across the pond, and return with us to the outskirts of Toledo.

Memories.

I fear we will also always have the exorbitant credit card bill that, along with the 487 awkward selfies we took in front of the Eiffel Tower, greeted our return like an old acquaintance from summer camp that you no longer like very much, beautifully documenting our time in the “City of Lights.”

I mean € 6.50 for a pain au chocolat…are you freakin’ serious?

That said, it’s good to be home.

Thankfully we will not always have the lingering resentment of our Parisian fight (I could have sworn that was Carla Bruni sunbathing topless in Bois de Boulogne) now that its memory has been blunted by your increased SSRI dosage.

That and my near-constant apologizing.

But you were right…perhaps I should have put down the binoculars.

Maybe though we will not always have Paris now that your 15-year-old ideologically dogmatic niece binge-watched Greta Thunberg videos and takes every opportunity to shame our “environmentally callous” ways, rendering future air travel, in your words, unforeseeable.

The little sprite!

We’ll always have Ohio.

Toodles,

Steve