July 4, 2013. 11:40pm
So the first day I came Tibot was the one person I thought I
wasn't going to like/I got a bad impression of - during break time he just
looked so angry and unfriendly and in the worst mood ever. I didn't understand
anything he said to the others in general, but I did not think I wanted to
interact with him.
I was so wrong! Tibot is so much fun!
He speaks the most English of all of them, and I think he
actually might be fairly fluent. Though we still spoke almost entirely in
French. I spoke in French all the time unless I really wanted a word or phrase
translated. He spoke mostly in French but sometimes repeated the sentence in
English, or said short phrases and words in English, either so that I would
understand or I think just for the fun of it. He was also the best at
communicating things to me in French. He spoke very clearly and pretty slowly
and looked right at me. And seemed less rushed than the kitchen staff.
Tibot is 27 years old (the second oldest after Chef/Joackim,
who is 28). He has lots of tattoos, including some that come down his arms past
his elbow - one is of some god or goddess or something - it looks like of like
the not fat Buddha, I think. I don't really know. He has very curly hair. He's
actually really cute. He's also not against dating people much younger than him
(I really do think it's quite normal here for older guys to date younger girls
- like how Allison, 20, is dating Francesco, 29). But don't get ahead of
yourself, I know this because he's dating a 17 year old right now. Okay, yes,
otherwise I might have a crush on him >.<
But he makes the 5 hour drive back home every week on his
weekend (which is slightly different from the kitchen crew's - I think Tuesday
is his full day off) - I think also because he prefers his hometown and his
friends are all there, but probably largely to see his girlfriend. He's from a
city close to the ocean, but I forget what it's called. It's very close to La
Mare aux Oisseau (one of the other restaurants of Eric Guerin, the owner of Le
Jardin des Plumes) - Tibot used to work there before Le Jardin des Plumes
opened 9 months ago.
Tibot has interacted with me the most of anyone though. He's
so playful! As in...he really likes teasing me. Mostly just lots of little
things, like imitating my yelp when I almost dropped something, pretending a
tiny mistake I made was a really big deal before saying it really didn't,
holding out a slice of peach for me but then popping it in his mouth when I
reached for it...with five slices. Then he held out a piece of peach pit for me.
Then when he finally held out a slice of peach that he actually put in my hand
several minutes later, he attempted to hit it out of my hand as I was popping
it in my mouth. But I caught it and finally ate a slice. So he messed with me
like that all day, and I mocked him every once in a while too.
But the worst thing came at the end of the day. When he
wanted something from the kitchen, he would tell me what, and if I didn't know
what it was, he would tell me to ask Jean-Baptiste for it. So when I was cleaning
the floor with the long squeegee stick thing, he told me to go ask
Jean-Baptiste for the second [insert French words I didn't understand here]. He
indicated that it meant the squeegee stick thing, and repeated slowly,
"moche couille". It was a kind of hard thing to say, so when Elene
came in I asked he to repeat it to me to and teach me how to say it. She
annunciated it very clearly as well, and so I went into the kitchen as I
repeated the words to myself in my head.
Well, I anounced to the kitchen, that I needed a second
"moche couille". Chef, Youaine, and Jean-Ba all looked at each other
as if to see if the others understood, then looked back at me and said,
"what??". So I repeated it again, and after more confused looks, I said
that Tibot told me to ask for the second "moche couille" - then I
acted out using the squeegee stick thing to clean the floors. They kind of
smiled, said "ah, oui oui" and said I could take it. As I started
walking out of the kitchen I heard them all start laughing. I peeked back in,
they all looked at me, and I got a very strong feeling that they were laughing
at me....
"TIIBOOOOOTTTT!!" I returned to the pastry
kitchen, and very suspiciously said in French "this is not a 'moche
couille', is it..." He started cracking up and refused to tell me what it
was.
Well after work I looked it up while we were all sitting
(/they were all smoking) on the stairs.
'Moche couille' translates to 'lousy testicle'....
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