Frankly my dear, je m'en fous.

I speak French with all of the grace and delicacy of a bull in a china shop, plowing into shelves of fragile tenses, sending the subjunctive flying to the floor and smashing into a million pieces, while the past and imperfect teeter threateningly in their display case.  However, tenses like the simple past and pluperfect are so far from my mind that they're safely stored miles away in the back of the china shop warehouse, covered in dust from disuse.  But needless to say, most people go running as soon as I open my mouth.

This is why I like idioms.  Neatly packaged phrases I can whip out at the drop of a hat that make me sound like I'm fairly adept at French.  And there's one for every occasion!  A student is getting on my nerves?  "Arrête de me casser les pieds!"  (Stop breaking my feet!)  I make a fool of myself (a daily occurrence):  "J'ai fait des bêtises."  (I did some stupid.)  I might "do a greasy morning" by sleeping in until noon and wake up with a "woody mouth" after a night at the discothèque.  When I spend weekends in Bar-le-Duc, I'm "as bored as a dead rat."

And then there's the whole slew of phrases that every French teacher yells at his or her class every five minutes which goes something like this, always with the same inflection:  "Ça y EST!  C'est pas VRAI!  C'est pénIBLE! OH là là!  J'en ai MARRE de vous.  Arrêtez de faire des bêtises!"  (That's it!  Unbelievable!  It's painful!  Oh la la! [no translation needed]  I've had enough of you.  Stop doing the stupid!)  When asked, I will recite this refrain with gusto for entertainment purposes.  My favorite of these phrases right now is "C'est pénible."  It's painful.  According to all the teachers I've met, just about everything is painful.  You accidentally write in print and not cursive?  Painful.  You dropped your pencil case and the contents are now littered across the floor?  Painful.  You don't know the date today?  Painful.  You colored outside the lines?  Painful.

Although my French is improving at the pace of a lethargic snail, I checked out the translated copy of "Bridget Jones' Diary" from the library yesterday.  I'm already picking up on a lot of new slang.  French Bridget says, "Beurk!" a lot, which I'm pretty sure means "Nerds!" in Tina Fey-speak.  I'm learning.