The Altercation aka Emily Goes to the Tour de France

The TOUR DE FRANCE CHAMPION!!!!

In the spirit of memento, and dane cook, I would like to start this story out from the end.

So, then the old french lady goes: "well, why don't you just KILL ME?"

ok, now let's REWIND.

Saturday the weather was terrible, but we went to disney anyways minus sara's sick boyfriend. It was awesome. The rides were way better. I rode space mountain twice and almost puked. There were more loopity loops, a scarier haunted house, and the all time favorite, buzz lightyear's space blast which, for those of you who don’t know, is an interactive video game ride where you sit in a car that you can swizzle around so that you can shoot at various targets throughout the ride. There was also a swinging bridge which i promptly stepped on and fell/slid/caught myself by one arm tryingto bounce across. This french guy held his hand out about a second after i fell, as if he was trying to catch me, but didn't and i almost yanked my arm out of the socket. good times. good times. Anyways, after 9 hours of Disney i was worn out and more than a little nauseated. I went to dinner with Nanda and our other friend Diana and then went to bed.

Sunday was the TOUR!!!! Since it was raining and nasty, I met sara late after having breakfast at the breakfast in america restaurant. Then I had to change because no one told France that it’s July and it was cold. Anyways, i roll in about 1230 to see sara, the recovered boyfriend and their other friend who's like 20 and makes me feel old. I stole sara away for some serious tour de france souvenir shopping and 65 euro later I was decked out. well, everything was big cause i got it for my dad, but i put it on anyways cause it was fun. So anyways, we're standing at the barrier and waiting and waiting and waiting and around 330, our friend tara shows up and she's got a chair so i got to sit down for a little while. well, then i notice that this old french woman is pressing up against me so hard that 1) she is pushing me off my seat and2) if she were a man, we are so close, that i would be having her babies in approximately nine months. so after about 10 minutes of this i say in french, excuse me madame, you are pushing me. and she mutters something back like, oh i just want to see. so i get up and move closer to the barrier and stand. well then she comes up behind me and starts pushing me again. so i start pushing back with almost as much force as i can muster just to maintain the space that i have because this is the strongest old lady ever. so she says, “oh c'est pas vrai (it's not true!) “ and i say OH C'EST VRAI! and the pushing continues for another twenty minutes while i mouth to my friends that apparently this woman does not think I will bring the pain if she tries to steal my spot to see the tour de france. Which i will because at this point i am livid. So after a little more jostling, she says, “just give me alittle bit of space (in english)” and I say (in what I realize is a perfect impression of my mother at her most furious)“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.”

So then we continue to push each other. This goes on for at least another 30 minutes, until I hit her with a nice elbow to the back, after she pushes me harder and she says in english, “stop pushing me”, at which point i turn around and unleash the FURY. I start screaming at her in English, "Listen, i have been waiting for FOUR hours and i am not moving an INCH, so you better stop pushing ME." so then she says, "no it is you who are pushing me" and then the guy next to me jumps in and yells at her, "well we've been here since 8 am and you pushed my wife too and IT NEEDS TO STOP."

so then the old french lady says, "Well, why don't you just KILL ME?"

A friend snapped a photo of me and the lady right before we throw down.

Anyways, after that she backed off and everything was fine. It was just strange, no one was even coming to take a picture of and no one else was pushing. Furthermore, if she’d just asked politely, I would’ve totally given in and scooted over. But here in France, we do things the hard way. However, I got to see everything and the teams even went by slowly for pictures.

Team Discovery!!!So it was cool. I loved it and I have three tshirts, a water bottle, a bag, a hat, a keychain, two magnets and some bracelets to commemorate the occasion.

THE END