When you go skiing in France you may come across the odd piste marked with a small yellow sign at the top which says, "Tres dificile". This does not mean that it is a slightly difficult run, or an easy run. It means that it is a "very difficult" run, with an emphasis on the "very" and on the "difficult".
When the French say that something is very difficult they mean it. They seem to like difficult. Where Mother Nature fails to provide them with the desired amount of difficulty, they have a special Government Department, Le Département de la Difficulté, which step in to compensate.
Skiers wear large cumbersome boots which are ideal for skiing but which tend to make walking, especially up and down stairs, "tres dificile". All French toilets are either up or down at least one flight very narrow, steep, slippery stairs. Toilets are allocated on a ratio of one toilet per 10,000 skiers to maintain the level of difficulty. Queuing is actually illegal. French toilets are very small. There is only one toilet roll in France which is allocated by Le Département de la Difficulté on a random basis.
Skiers, when not actually skiing, tend to have their hands full of skis, poles, gloves, goggles and stuff. Le Département de la Difficulté has a Sub-Department of Doors, Turnstiles, Gates and Obstacles, their role is to confound skiers on foot. No two doors, turnstiles, gates or obstacles are the same.
Le Département de la Difficulté prohibits a ski resort from having more than one lift of a particular type: this prevents skiers from working out which hand they need to have free prior to stumbling on board. A general rule of thumb here is that if you need to show your lift pass on the left then you will need your right hand free for grabbing the drag lift. If you present your lift pass to the lift attendant, he or she is bound by departmental procedure, to ignore you. If for any reason your pass is in your pocket, tangled in your poles or otherwise hard to get at then you will be required to show it.
Restaurants on the piste adhere rigidly to Le Département de la Difficulté guidelines: their quaintness obscures the fact that they are designed to be difficult for anyone over 1 metre tall or who weighs more than 20 kilos. French waiters make things difficult by ignoring your attempts at French by addressing you in perfect English. They will also make things difficult for you by ignoring your attempts to speak English to them by speaking perfect French.
Le Département de la Difficulté exists to prevent France from joining the rest of the world in its headlong rush into mind numbing Disney, McDonalds, Starbucks, Coke Cola sameness.
Vive Le Département de la Difficulté!
