Une histoire

Ok, so I did a bunch this weekend, but I'm gonna wait to post about most of it because it's late here. However, there is one story that I want to post now before I forget vital details. So I was leaving my apartment around noon yesterday when this guy called to me from the street. He was in his car in the middle of the road and I just figured he needed help with directions. Feeling more confident about my direction-giving capabilities than I should have, I asked him what was up. He was Italian, but we started out speaking in French, then in English. He pulled over to get off of the road and the sketchiness began. So first he shows me this map of Paris and I figure I was right and he just needs directions. Then he starts telling me about his career. It turns out he's a fashion designer who did a show at the Louvre the night before. He shows me this little album of photos and shows me a few pictures of a jacket. I think he claimed it was Gucci or some other famous Italian brand. Then he shows me the contents of a bag in the passenger seat and it's the same suit. He says it's not even on the market yet and it's for next season but he wants to give it to me. He adds that I appeared to be the right size from the sidewalk. It was a really nice suit, so I was a little intrigued. I asked him why he wanted to give it to me, and he just said he wanted to give it to a tourist in Paris before leaving. At this point I'm kind of torn; it sounded like I didn't even have to do anything for it. Then he goes on about the suit and says that it's worth 2000 euros. I'm impressed. Eventually he gets to his point: he tells me he has to be in Nice, pretty far from Paris, in 9 hours for another expo and then he shows me he's almost out of gas. He explains that he went to a casino on the Champs Elysées the night before and lost 5000 euros. He can't use his credit card because he just went over his limit. That's when I decided to leave. I said I didn't really know where any gas stations were and that I didn't have a French credit card, which I said you needed in order to by gas in Paris. I wished him good luck and left. I felt a little bad for several reasons: he may have been serious, Nice is a good drive from Paris, and he probably spent about 10 minutes on his unsuccessful pitch. Overall I have no idea if he was serious or not: he was in a nice car, he had a nice suit, his story was pretty elaborate, he had a real-looking business card. He also had a very strong Italian accent, which I found fairly amusing when he was speaking in French. Anyways, my sketchiest story in Paris to date, unless you count Versailles a few years ago. I'll post on other stuff soon!