never far

with a weekend back in Paris planned for the weekend, I stepped through to the passport control line at Waterloo station this Saturday morning. A Japanese chick in front of me was doing some light flirting with the customs official checking her passport, he seemed to enjoy this, as I probably would have. It was then my turn to present my passport. Being a believer in good manners and all-around courtesy, I said "bonjour" to the guy. But since his gaze was still intent on said Japanese lady, no doubt entertaining chaste thoughts of how some clever line he could have regaled her with. So he then turned to me, who had been standing there for a few seconds now, and said his own "bonjour". Thinking he was simply being courteous back to my initial greeting, I did not offer one back, waiting for him to do his 2.1 second check to ensure my passport had the right color. Alas, so preoccupied his mind must have been with my predecessor, he must have not heard me say hello first, and so repeated his "bonjour" with the friendliness usually reserved for people with a passport color very different from mine, all the while focusing his now less-than-copacetic look on me. His passport check still lasted 2.1 seconds, but those were much less jovial than my general mood was until that point.
In a way, I felt this was sort of a "welcome back", showing me that although my life may have changed, I could still count on unsmiling civil servants to make sure I felt I was coming back to familiar waters. French people's rudeness is generally quite exaggerated abroad, but such random acts of surliness feel, oddly enough, just like home to me.