Dairy Yen. Or, How I am Slaughtering French One Word at a Time.

So the lingua franca around these parts is French. It's one of the six official languages of the organization where I work. It's one of the four official languages of Switzerland. And, it's the primary language of the country in which I'm living. That's all well and good, but I don't speak French.

I speak English.

I speak German.

I do not speak French.

Okay, that's a tiny bit of a lie. I speak about 15 words of French. The rest of my French--about five more words--I speak very badly. I'm intentional in that. It's the only way to be forgiven my transgression of not actually speaking the language of Voltaire and De Tocqueville and all those other brainy, democratic French folk.*

In fact, because my minimalist French is intentionally bad, it's a source of great humor to my French-born colleagues and friends.

For example, the other day, the production editor of a weekly report emailed me some bit of information about an available publication slot for an upcoming article. She thanked me for my help liaising with contributing authors. In reply to her, and knowing full well that she's 100% French,** I wrote:

Dairy Yen

JMT

A couple of hours later, I got a phone call from the production editor. As I picked up the phone and said, "This is Jay," my salutation was met with fits of laughter. Finally catching her breath, the production editor said to me, "Eye finolly feegured eet out!"***

"What's that?" I asked.

"Dairy yen," she said. "I kept reading zat over and over and I didn't geet eet. Zen I said eet out-loud--dairy yen--and I goot eet! So foony!"

We enjoyed a good laugh together and then we rang off. The rest of the week, every time the production editor saw me, she'd giggle and say, "Dairy yen."

I can't make heads or tails of French as it's spelled. Phonetically, though, I have a perfect grasp of it. Hence, de rien--French for "You're welcome"--comes out dairy yen.****

Makes sense to me.

Ah-ree-vor, mez-a-meeees!*****

* It should be noted that I'm actually not one of those Americans who slaughters languages with bad pronunciation and hopeless accents. Because I'm partially deaf, I have a propensity for mimicry. Ergo, I can do a decent British, Irish, and Scottish accent and my German aussprache is strong. The same is true with what little French I know. I can pronounce it correctly and I sound like I know how to speak French. But that's the rub: I can't.

** Although, that's questionable. Said production editor is from Alsace-Lorraine. That poor little slice of Europe has changed hands so many times and gone back and forth between the French and Germans so often, I know people who change their underwear less frequently than the Alsace-Lorraine has changed borders.

*** For future reference, I won't write out French dialogue in bad French accents. That's an insult to my French friends. Besides, their English is starting to sound normal to me and English/American English is sounding odd.

**** I make sure to say it with the worst possible American accent I can muster. That way, it's clear that I'm a) mocking my own people and b) mocking my own lack of French-speaking ability.

***** Update: Corrected to reflect JaneAnne's comment.

In Which I Go to the Pharmacy in France to Pick Up My Prescription...

And Am Utterly Gobsmacked by the Price...

I don't know whether to write this as a story or as an open letter to President Obama. Knowing that he already believes we need universal health care, I doubt anything I'm about to say would make a difference or would move him any faster. Perhaps the people I need to be writing to are in Congress, but they're a bunch of useless, bickering schlubs, so I guess I'll just go with the story and hope that maybe, just maybe, we'll acheive univeral coverage for all Americans before the turn of the next century. One can dream, right?

One of the requirements for working at the organization I'm working at is, you have to have a basic physical. I wasn't able to do that before I left the States, so I had to do it here. Fortunately, the org where I work has a fully staffed, on site clinic. So, I made an appointment and had a physical. Part of the process includes meeting with the on site doctor, which I did. Lovely lady whose English wasn't that great, but who spoke French and German. My French sucks (read: is totally non-existent except for a few words like hello, thank you, and wonderful!), but I can do German, so that's what we did.

Anyway--I mentioned to her my history of migraine and told her that I take, as needed, a lovely little pill called Relpax. I told her I had one pill left and wondered if she could write me a script, because I'd left my script at home. She promptly wrote it out and then advised me to pick it up at a pharmacy in France because it would be cheaper than getting it in Switzerland.

Bear in mind two things here. First, I'm self-employed, which means I'm one of the more than 40 million Americans without health insurance. Second, when I have to pick up a prescription, I have to pay for it out-of-pocket. As a result, my medicine is very, very expensive and I'm very careful about when I use it. In the U.S., six tablets of 40 mg Relpax--the standard dispensed dosage--is between US$190 and US$230 a box. That's about US$32-US$38 per pill. Needless to say, I only take one if I absolutely have to, which is further to say that if the two Advil migraine and two regular Advil I take together don't work at the outset of a migraine, I'm reduced to taking one of my very expensive pills.

When the doctor said, "Go to France; it's cheaper," I figured "cheaper" would mean I'd be paying around €110 - €150 (around US$150 - US$210) for the stuff. In preparation for that, I pulled out my Visa card and braced myself. Then, I handed the script to the pharmacist. She went behind the wall, pulled it off the shelf, did a little bit of this and that on the computer, handed it to me and said, "€28,80."

*blink* *blink*

"Pardon? €28,80?" I asked in my best Franglish.

"Oui. €28,80."

I turned to my friend Sue, who comes with me to provide language services when I go to things like pharmacies and grocery stores and the like. "Did she say €28,80? As in two-eight? Twenty-eight euros?"

Sue confirmed that, yes, in fact, the pharmacist said "€28,80."

I think at that point, I had an out-of-body experience. I said, "€28,80?" then looked at the pharmacist and said, "In the United States, I'd pay $200 for these." Now it was her turn for an out-of-body experience. Sue had to translate that to her, despite her good English.

So, here's my question, ladies and gentlemen. Why can I get my migraine medication for US$40.44 in Europe--essentially the price of ONE pill in the States--but it costs me nearly US$200 in the United States for the exact same thing?!

Can someone please explain this inequity to me? Do pharmaceutical companies fleece us like this because they know they can?

Needless to say, I think I'm moving to France. At the very least for my pills, if nothing else. Forget the good butter and the good bread and the access to excellent chocolate, I want my pills.

And now, I'll go away. But before I do, I'm calling the doctor at the clinic and asking her to write me a script for 36 pills. €175 is still cheaper than I'd ever pay in the US.