La Voyeuse et Les Espions Comme Nous

I finished my Christmas shopping this evening. *Sigh of relief*...and to reward myself, I wiled away a few hours inside Barnes & Noble in Buckhead where I was to reward myself with one new book. I bought three but self-restraint has never been one of my attributes, except where sweets are concerned (I can eat just one.) It was so damp and chilly today; the perfect day for Christmas shopping (everyone else seemed to think so, too - our economy may rebound yet) and book-browsing, Starbucks-in-hand. I was wearing my favorite mid-length trench coat today, it really is gorgeous and I feel like a million bucks every time the weather permits me to wear it, even though it only cost me around $200. I had a nice brief conversation with the barista at Starbucks about the shopping season and the great cool weather and my choice of beverage (triple grande latte...2 shots is too few, 4 is too many) before the perusing began.

I start in the magazine section where I shamefully read half of Vogue Paris (I'm sorry, B&N, I just can't shell out $16 for a periodical, even if it is en français) and notice a very cute man standing near by. I'm not sure how long he'd been there before I noticed, but boy did I take notice. A not-so-shy glance his way met a not-so-shy glance my way. It said "I'm single, you look single, we're in a book store on a Saturday night, let's flirt a little." Yessir! Picking up the next magazine, I check him out over the top of the page and assess the goods. Nice Italian loafers, nice black slacks, white collared shirt peeking out of grey pullover v-neck sweater, nice jacket, nice hair, nice face, nice eyes, nice, nice, nice.

Copyright © 2008 A Southern Belle Goes to Paris, y'all.

But I don't want to be too forward so I resume my other browsings and head over to fiction & literature, the whole point of the trip. Mr. Handsome joins me in fiction and then the dance begins. Checking out what I'm looking at...then I check out what he's looking at. He moves on to religion & spirituality and I think "oooh, cute and spiritual" and I'm looking at classics. He moves over to self-improvement and I think "oooh, sensitive" and I move to travel (France, of course) he moves over to sex & relationships and I think "please, not all the way over to gay & lesbian" and then, relieved, think "oooh, passionate". I make my way to poetry and he moves to true crime....."oooh, psycho". Au revoir, Mr. Handsome!

I should have known; my Official Nancy Drew Handbook, which I picked up at the Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., tells me on page 98 that I can surmise a man's character by the shoes he wears and should be wary of men wearing expensive-looking loafers.

Perhaps next time I should let this guy help me sleuth out the perps:

Inspector Clouseau would have spotted a stark-raving lunatic right away!

I must have a thing for spies; I was just regaling a friend with tales of an old boyfriend I had whom I was completely convinced was a spy. He lived in Paris (still does), he fluently spoke 5 languages (French, English, Spanish, Italian, Russian) and at one time was learning Mandarin and Cantonese, so he very well could be up to 7 by now. His job was very hush-hush for a telecom company and he traveled to some of the strangest places. Being in the late 1990's, there weren't too many investigatory advances on the internet so I had to resort to old-school techniques like pocket-searching and suitcase-inspecting. I never found anything concrete, but the gumshoe life is nothing if not exhilarating. My best guess is that he simply had a girl in every port. Such is life. Au revoir, M. L'Espion!

I think tomorrow I will go see Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond installment. And I'll wear my favorite trench coat. I need some sort of spy-action theme song.