… – the inconspicuous PC specialist told my friend Anupama and me yesterday. Then, he went on about how he dealt with stars like Johnny Depp every day…

„So – what’s going on here?“ emenated from below on my left hand side. As I turned my face, I saw a little Indian woman smiling up at me, indicating the direction of the rando across the street.

The randonnée de roller is Paris‘ rollerblade which takes place every Friday. Often (as that night), I join them blading through Paris, so I could actually explain to Anupama what all this was about. Talking about the rando, we got along so well that we decided to have a cup of coffee one week later.

Next week was yesterday. When I called Anupama, she was sitting in a café not far away from my place. I joined her for a café au lait and we went back to her place (everything was purely platonic 🙂 ). It was a nice, spacious two-room appartment with parquet flooring. „My company has found me some other, better place, but I am not going to move to there for three weeks time.“ she says. Some better place… Cool.

Anupama comes from the South of India. However, she has not lived there for 10 years back. No, for the last ten years she has been travelling around the world with the oil company she is working for. She gets moved often and so has already been to Asia, the US, Africa and Europe – only South America has been left out. Her husband works for the same company- so Anupama takes her home with her whereever she goes.

Jean Philippe was also in the room. He is a computer specialist and was supposed to help Anupama connect her computer to the internet. After a short while, though, he gave up saying: „You ‚ave too much spyware on zzis computer – it cannot work like zzis.“ In order to get online, Anupama got a Wifi-card that should pick up a France-wide Wifi-network. Unfortunately, as Jean Philippe underlined, the card doesn’t work when there is too much spyware on the computer.

Done with his work, Jean Philippe packed his things and was about to leave. Anupama, held him back and asked if he would be able to help her with the internet connection in her next (better) appartment as well. „Of course“, he replied. „I do zzis every week for ozzer people like Johnny Depp and Donald Sutherland.“ At this instant, Anupama squeaked: „What? You know Johnny Depp? How come? I can’t believe it – oh my God!!“
„Yeah – how come?“ I asked amazed. Jean Philippe explained his business strategy to us: He works with the 12 best real estate agencies in Paris. And every time, clients need someone to fix their internet, the agencies‘ employees pass on his number. Jean Philippe took out his mobile phone and showed it to us: „No camera“, he says. That was why he could move freely amongst stars – he just didn’t care.

„Well“, I said, „that is amazing! Where does Johnny Depp live?“ Jean Philippe looked at me and shook his head: „I cannot say zzis.“ he replied.

Good boy, I thought and asked myself if little Jean Philippe really told the truth…

L.