Paris, France –
Yep, we were accosted, in broad daylight, in a crowded square in the popular Montmartre neighborhood, in front of everyone.
Sacre bleu! Who would do such a thing?
Well…
Dore and I were standing in Place du Tertre, in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris, having a discussion. What were we discussing? I don’t know, something unimportant, like what to do, or where to go. It doesn’t matter, and I don’t remember. If it had been something important, well, we were on vacation, sightseeing in Paris, so it wouldn’t have been, would it?
Unless it was some boneheaded affront that I had committed, then it would have been extremely important. At least to Dore. I would probably have been clueless, completely dumbfounded as to why she was so upset. But I don’t remember her being upset with me at that time, so I’m sticking with the claim that it was unimportant.
Anyway, we were standing there, having this discussion, when a man came up next to us and started staring intently at me. When I turned to look at him, I noticed that he was cutting on a piece of black paper with scissors while looking intensely at my head. Suddenly, there was a woman standing on the other side of us doing the same thing while staring at Dore. We were surrounded.
Well, not really surrounded. It was more like we each had a remora attached to our side. At first we tried to continue our conversation, but I had to know if Dore was feeling the same way I did.
“Do you feel like we are being mugged?”
Dore nodded her head in agreement. We had not asked for these two street artists to do our silhouettes, but instead, they decided on their own to come up to us without saying a word, and start making their art works regardless of our desires.
When they were finished with their efforts, Dore took one look at her likeness and insisted that it didn’t look like her. I don’t know how she would know, it’s not like any of us spend much time looking at ourselves from the side. But the woman quit protesting and pulled out another piece of black paper, starting another version. I stopped her before she could make more than the initial cut, while it could still pass as just about anyone’s neckline.
At this point, Dore became very upset and stormed off, leaving me to deal with them by myself.
I asked how much they were going to charge me for the two silhouettes. The man gave me a price of 20€ a piece, for a total of 40€. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a 5€ note and handed it to him, telling him that it was all the cash that I had on me, take it or leave it. He shrugged, said it was better than nothing, and pocketed the bill. I put the two silhouettes into my pocket and went in search of Dore.
I might have felt a little guilt over giving such a small amount of money for the silhouettes if we had wanted and had asked for them. But we had not. They took it on themselves to do our silhouettes, unasked. I’m sure this is a scam they pull on any number of tourists that visit Paris, most of which probably fork out the full amount requested, their artwork forced on the unsuspecting. However, we did not appreciate their approach, and felt like we were being molested, in the middle of the street. Or rather the sidewalk. Well, more like over to one side, on the corner, up against a building…
For photos from Montmartre, click here.
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