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If I knew exactly what happened next, it wouldn’t have happened. All I know is there was a lot of driving across farmland, a lot of yelling and poorly informed disagreement at every traffic circle, a U-turn in the middle of a freeway, and finally, an hour and a half after our French nav system was telling us we were 126 km from Le Mans, it was telling us we were 97 km from Le Mans.
We could finally do the math, and the math very clearly told us we weren’t waiting for the Mulsanne straight to eat bad food.
This is where the story turns tragic.
In our hours of driving in circles, I had finally figured out what a rest area sign looked like. If French rest stops are anything like Italian ones, we could be stranded in one for a month and never go hungry. I immediately take the next rest stop exit and find ourselves driving down a sidewalk in front of a small hotel. We have no idea what happened to the rest stop, but whatever. We see people inside the hotel eating food, so we go with it.
The hotel kitchen, naturally, is closed. Le waitress tells us our only hope of vittles at this hour is a neon-soaked chain joint across the street called Courtepaille. We’re so bad at navigating French roads, it takes us three tries to find the entrance to the parking lot.
Once inside, we can’t agree if Courtepaille is a French Applebees or a French Cracker Barrel, but one thing is clear: it’s gonna Le Suck.
Three things differentiate a French Applebees from an American one. First, the French ones have wine on the table before you even get there. Second, the waitress brings you a small dinner salad with your menu, almost like an American Mexican restaurant brings chips and salsa. This is the best thing that’s happened all night, except to Bitter Dan, who has an intense physical reaction to anything resembling mayonnaise or smelling like vinegar. While the three of us devour our saucerful of iceberg lettuce, Bitter gives his a Stink Eye strong enough to kill a wombat. The salad has a creamy white dressing on it. Mayonnaise is also creamy and white.
In the week or so leading up to our failure to reach Le Mans, we’ve been traveling around France eating a diet of nothing but baguettes, ham and cheese. Like the rest of France, most of the Courtepaille menu is variations on baguettes, ham and cheese. Desperate for something we’ll actually be able to shit out later, three of us immediately order more salad.
Oh, and that brings us to the third thing that’s different about French Applebees. “Who the fuck puts pickled herring on a salad!?” exclaims Bitter, as our entrée salads arrive and the vinegary odor of slimy pickled herring juice coating all three of our salads throws him into dry heaves of unfiltered rage.
The menu had lots of French nonsense on it, but we’re pretty sure none of it meant pickled herring. Yet there it sits atop all three of our salads, mocking us. Speaking of mocking us, Kyle ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, which turns out to be a delicious-looking grilled chicken and a plate full of French fries (just fries here in France…). None of us actually kill Kyle and take his fries, but I’m pretty sure all three of us consider it.
