Je ne me souviens plus

Here is one of my favourite 'Kirk' stories taken from a letter I wrote a few months after our arrival in Switzerland.

A few weeks ago Kirk headed out to have his bike inspected and to return a movie. The bike shop took a little longer than planned, so it was late afternoon by the time he reached the video store. He parked his bike on the sidewalk in front of a shop window and headed in to do his errand.

A few minutes later he returned to find an elderly man draped over his bike. The man was sunny-side-up, his bottom on the seat with his face wedged between the store window and the bike. To complete this unlikely scenario, the man's pants were soaked in pee.

How extraordinary—and not at all Swiss!

Kirk carefully dislodged the man from his predicament, bike unscathed but decidedly damp. When asked how this had happened, the man responded, "Je ne me souviens plus,"—I don't remember. Kirk had his suspicions. The man's "plus" was at least 100 proof.

Kirk helped the man sit down against the side of the building to wait for the ambulance that snickering bystanders had called. With the man settled, Kirk headed for home. While he wasn’t the only person who came away with a story that afternoon, he was the only one who needed a shower and a change of clothes.