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| Timely: The days might be cold but the emerging blossoms remind us that spring can't be too far away. |
As I examined the wrecked bed more closely, I began to understand exactly what had gone wrong. Although it lay in a complicated mess, the frame twisted at an odd angle and the wooden support slats jutting all over the place, the cause of the collapse boiled down to one critical fracture: a welded joint right in the middle of the frame.
Simple as this fracture was, there was no chance of me borrowing a spot welding kit from a friend to fix it. Paris might be brimming with Van Gogh's and Monet's, but portable welders are few and far between. With an entire day of fasting in front of me, I decided that without the right tools it wouldn't be wise to try and solve the problem right then and there. Rather, I would head out to my first appointment and let things turn over in the back of my mind.
Things did turn over, and by the time I was finished with my first client, an idea had formed in my head. I figured if I could find a matching pair of metal plates, I could use them as a kind of splint around the fractured joint to hold the frame together. But where was I going to find metal plates of exactly the right dimensions for my purposes? I had no idea, but I knew that the first place to start looking would be that behemoth of Paris hardware, the BHV (le Bazar de l'Hôtel de Ville).
Since I wasn't doing any eating at lunchtime, I rode my bike over the bridge in the vague hope that the BHV might have some sheet metal which they could cut to size. Upon entering the store, I tracked down a shop clerk and nervously showed him a diagram of how I proposed to fix the bed. His response was so typically french, I hesitated to take it seriously: "Mais oui monsieur, why don't you go and look in the metal plate section". Unsure as to whether he was not just exacting vengeance for my less than perfect french accent, I ventured toward the back of the shop where lo and behold, I discovered not just a few pieces of sheet metal, but a whole row of metal plates pre-cut to various sizes and already drilled with holes. With great excitement I began scanning the shelves hoping to find something that would rescue our night's sleep and keep the dream of completing my first Ramadan alive.
