FauxFrenchie

So I'll just come out and say it: Kady likes people more than I do. She likes talking to them. She's interested in their lives, where they're from, where they're headed.

She asks them questions. She listens to their response. She may or may not care. But she likes the exchange. She is an extrovert through and through. This is her fuel. This is what makes her not only tick... but this is what makes Kady Hexum glow.

Me, on the other hand- well, I like animals.

Kady's extroverted nature led to us meeting a lot of nice and interesting people on our travels. It's also how FauxFrenchie was introduced into our lives.

Kady liked FauxFrenchie's pants. This led to what I found to be a tedious conversation about how she designed them... but the tailors got them all wrong... she threw a fit til they were right... bla bla bla.

We also learned a little too much about how she gets around/around (yes that's exactly what I mean) her detestation of all things American, and her general means/style of travel/life:

"I get off zee bus and I go up to someone and I say, 'are you from a vee-lage?' and zen I ask if I can leev wees zem and zey take me to zair veel-age..."

This is actually almost interesting, if you ask me. But when she tells it, it is dripping with a little too much superiority.

She had knocked on our door earlier that day asking if we were also headed to Hanoi. We were. I cursed Kady's magnetic personality. FauxFrenchie complained about the price of the bus ticket "here" and went off to find cheaper tickets elsewhere. She succeeded and three were purchased.

She was so unpleasant and condescending I don't even want to pay any homage to her with this post, but she offered Kady and me some of the most memorable quotes of our trip so, you see, I have to...

Her laptop had been stolen in Cambodia. On it was a novel she had written. It is gone forever.

At this, she merely shrugs.

Kady: "I'm so sorry your laptop was stolen. That's so awful."

FF: "Zey are just tings... You cannot be so attached... eet eez zee way when you leev your life free..."

Kady: "Was your book about your trip?"

FF: "Eets not a trip; eets my life"

Kady: "So are you permanently retired or will you have to go back to work some day?"

FF: "Everyday I am working. My life eez my job."

I diagnosed her as the least likeable trustafarian I'd ever met and quite possibly a prostitute. Every comment was snarky and supercilious (I know I know- insert eye-roll). I never once indulged her by expressing any interest in her or her way of life. Kady on the other hand couldn't help herself. Then as FF's responses grew shorter and more disdainful, Kady reeeeally couldn't help herself and began baiting her by saying really stupid crap just to illicit a condescending remark.

Kady: "Have you noticed (stupid and not very interesting observation about Vietnam)?"

FF: (snide and patronizing non-response with as few words as humanly possible)

When we arrived at Hanoi, after a particularly awful overnight bus ride where I had to cling to my bus "bed" for dear life so as not to fall the five and a half feet off of my bunk into the aisle where several Vietnamese men slept on the floor AND my face decided to punish me by inexplicably looking like this:

I offered this as a summary of the evening: "Worst. Night. Ever."

FF: "Zen you've add a pretty good life..."

That was the final straw. Kady and I didn't even need a powwow. We were moving on to the next city.

She was offended at our change of plans and parasitically attached herself to Daniel, the nice boy from Oregon I had smiled at knowingly after he expressed confusion at her being from Minnesota ("Oh... I thought I detected an accent...").

He looked longingly and pitifully at Kady and me as we said goodbye but we couldn't help him. He'd have to find his own way (out).