Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Riding in Cars With Boys

I made a lot of poor decisions while living in small town France. There's not much to do there besides make terrible decisions. 

My small town had exactly one bar, and this bar was usually mainly populated with my own high school students. However, one night, my roommate and I met two handsome Algerian/French guys of more or less our own age and drank and talked in the bar until a little past midnight at which point the roommate and I started complaining about how there was so little to do at night in our town. The boys exchanged looks, downed their beers, and told us they had something to show us. We just had to get in their car and they would take us somewhere magical. 

I don't know about the rest you of you, but to me, right now, this sounds like code for WE ARE GOING TO DRIVE YOU INTO THE WOODS TO RAPE AND MURDER YOU AND NO ONE WILL COME FOR YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE SILLY FOREIGNERS.
In fact, even at the time it sounded a little like that. But the roommate and I left the bar with them, got in their car, and let them drive us off through town....

....AND INTO THE WOODS. Yes, that's right, they drove us right into the night black woods and I suddenly realized exactly how idiotic I had just been. We drove through the woods for maybe 5 minutes, which, if you are a 22 year old female in the backseat of a car driven by two strange men in the middle of the night, is a really long time. 

But when we came out of the trees, an absolutely beautiful sight awaited. They drove a few hundred yards and parked the car near the edge of the hill we had come out on, got out of the car, and gestured down below. It was amazingly beautiful. Magical, even. You could see miles and miles and miles of French countryside lit up in clusters as each little town revealed itself in street lamps and house lights. The moon was full and glowing and left a swath of light over the whole countryside like a fairy path. The air was light and a tiny breeze picked up the sound of leaves--the only sound. 

We watched for a few minutes, and then one of the guys turned on the car radio, opened all the doors, and we spent until dawn dancing just the four of us, the whole world sleeping below. It was one of the best nights I have ever spent. There was no one around, the music kept playing, we never got tired, the lights moved and blinked below us.  The guys were perfect gentlemen--never made a single effort at inappropriate touching, never made us feel uncomfortable, and, and at dawn drove us back to our door and said goodbye and we slept until 2 in the afternoon. It was one of those nights you remember for your whole life, the way it looked and sounded and felt perfect, all the planes of existence coming together to make you feel perfectly solid and completely surreal all at once. 

So the moral of the story? Trust strangers, take risks, don't live your life in a bubble?

NO! Are you stupid? Are you high? NEVER GET IN CARS WITH STRANGE MEN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. What is wrong with you????