There are 3 regional newspapers that include Carcassonne in their coverage. This morning a headline that caught both of us by surprise included the line “du sh*t dans le caleçon” except the paper did not substitute an asterisk for the vowel. OK, then, what does that mean?

The story was about a driver who habitually ran through the toll gate on the highway leading into Spain without ever paying, 38 times alone in October. When the police arrested him he gave them four false names and was never able to provide a driver’s license so they added those charges to the primary one of avoiding the tolls. But what about that “stuff” in his underwear/pants (le caleçon)? Did they scare it out of him? Can you be arrested in France if they do?

We saw a clue in the fourth charge that was for the use of stupéfiants. If 60 percent of English words really are of French origin, we can easily jump to “stupefy” and from there to “drugs”, an arrestable offense. A dictionary check confirmed our suspicions. How funny is that going to be the first time we have to go into a pharmacy and say “Bonjour, I would like to pick up my sh*t, please”.

PS: For those of you who say that you are learning one new French word a day, this doesn’t count! It would, however, be a prime opportunity to say “Pardon my French.”