Sandeberg Rising

One of the most common objections I hear about France in general is that it is common for women not to shave their armpits. On considering this I decided it was time for this survey.

Paris has been blessed with lovely weather for the last few weeks, so the time was ripe for me to conduct this survey. The Parisiennes kindly obliged me in this endeavour by wearing halter tops, bikini tops and other skimpy items of clothing that allowed me to surrepticiously inspect their armpits.

The Subjects

For this survey the armpits of women aged between about 15 and 50 were inspected. The total sample size was in the region of 25 subjects. Naturally only visible armpits were inspected, no clothes were ripped off and no Parisiennes were harmed in this experiment.

The Results

From the sample size of 25, only two women had not shaved their armpits recently. On one of these two the underarm hair was not as much of a detractor as the hair on the face. Mustaches are just nasty.

Conclusions

From the results of the survey, it can be concluded that 92% of Parisiennes who show their armpits in warm weather have also shaved them. So, if you want to avoid that underarm jungle, look before you touch.

Having received the exciting news that my flat in Paris had finally been arranged, I proceeded to leave work early, about 19:00, so I could meet the landlord to have a good look at the place before moving in. With the meeting arranged for 20:00, this should have left plenty of time to travel there on the underground system. Unless of course someone sets fire to the train you are on. That phenomenon has been known to cause delays on trains from time to time. Not always of course, I remember one story a few years back where there was a fire in the freight train tunnel underneath the English Channel. The fire was started by a lorry that was already on fire as it entered the tunnel. This does not speak well for French customs officials. I can just imagine the exchange:
“‘Ave you anysing to declare?”
“A fire.”
“Oui, c’est bon. Move along.”

But anyway, back to the night in question. Having the journey interrupted by an inconsiderate pyromaniac, I was pleasantly surprised by the response of my fellow travellers. The news was greeted with shrugs, gallic of course, jokes and a general movement toward creating car pools and taxi shares for everyone to get into town. No anger, no screaming at officials, merely acceptance. This does beg the question of how often this kind of things happens of course.
I ended up getting a lift from complete strangers who had been driving past and heard the news on the radio that there were problems. So they stopped by, picked up some people and took them to the centre of Paris, even offering an evening meal to my co-passengers and myself.

The apartment itself is lovely and I will be spending my first night there on Wednesday. I shall be sharing it with a colleague from Poland and one from Germany, so I’m sure it’ll be… amusing.