T.E. Lawrence once described the
French as the most prosaic of all peoples, able to sap the romance and poetry from even
sex by being completely matter-of-fact. Prosaic or not, the typically
French matter-of-factness came in very handy on my wedding night.
OK, strictly speaking, it was not our wedding night. The fact was that on the actual night of our wedding we were so exhausted from not only getting married but also having to set up and break down much of the wedding and reception equipment ourselves (despite having not one but four best men), so not much happened in terms of usual wedding night activities. The next morning we left for our honeymoon in Jerusalem and Egypt, stopping over in Paris. The flight was fine and we got there OK. Thing is, our luggage didn't. It was still making its way through Charles de Gaulle while we were arriving in Tel Aviv.
Air France was very apologetic and made arrangements for our luggage to be held at the airport for us, but for the meantime they provided us each, as most airlines do in such situations, with a little emergency overnight kit- a toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, soap, shampoo, mouthwash, t-shirt... and a condom. Where American airlines would not even consider such a thing, Air France treated it as obvious. I mean, what's the one thing you really don't want to discover was lost with your luggage? What topped it off for us was that we had completely forgot to bring our own and that it's very difficult to find condoms in the Middle East. So our first night together as a married couple was entirely thanks to Air France.
Thank you, O prosaic French. Never change.