One thing that is important for any self-respecting Brit living in Rennes (or France for that matter) is to cheat the Metro. For months, I used the *foolproof* system of buying one ticket that I didn't stamp, and then would tell any eventual controllers that I was English and didn't know you had to stamp your ticket before the journey rather than after. After all, we're English! Even if I've lived here for 7 years, I'm foreign and can't be expected to know better... this worked fine for ages for the sole reason that I never met a single controller. The entire time I had my unstamped ticket, thatt is.
Then a few weeks ago, accompanied by my 3 sproglets, in tearing hurry to get last coach home (we live 40km from Rennes), would you believe there they are, like flies in suits, waiting for unsuspecting prey at the exit of the lift. I didn't have my lucky ticket, and hadn't a single centime of change to buy one, so, naively, I thought, 'Just this once, it'll be alright'...Oh but no. So with slightly sick feeling in stomach, and praying that bilingual children will not utter a word of French during attempt to weedle out of non-ticket state with sadistic controller. Amazingly they didn't, but Mr. Sadist didn't care that I was in a foreign country in a foreign country and didn't speak a word of the lingo, and fined my 26 Euros. A whole day's pay.
Having learnt from this, I buy a ticket for my journey of two stops on Friday (non-stamped, of course). I don't even see them until I get to the top of the escalator, and then they pounce.
'Yes I have a ticket', I tell them, and wave said miniscule paper proudly.
'Is no good ticket, Madame. No stamp'.
'Fine, fine, I stamp now, ok?'(I am standing 30 cm from machine).
'No, no, is too late, Madame. You travel no ticket'.
Huh?
'But I have a ticket, I buy ticket, look!'
I had forgotten the complete autism of French bureaucrats and officials.
'No, Madame, is no good ticket. You pay.'
I get cross.
'I buy ticket AND I pay? I have ticket!'
I decide to play trump card.
'In England we stamp after travel!'
I feel triumphant in glory. Get around that one without looking sadistic and bloodyminded... oh yes, I forgot. French officials like to be sadistic and bloodyminded.
'No, no, is same for everybody, you pay'.
My face falls.
'What?'
'Yes, yes, you pay!'
I start shouting. I've never shouted at a complete stranger in my life.
'But that's robbery!'
He doesn't care, does he? He knows.
So I pay.
'Have you got a pen? If you're going to rob me you can at least do it with your own pen!'
My hands tremble so much I can hardly write. Another day's pay gone in a flash.
But the upshot of this is that, even if they're inhuman bastards, that's their job. And if I want to move forward in my evolution, I've got to be straight. I can't manipulate like that any more. I'm not foreign, my English deteriorates a une vitesse incroyable to be filled by French words, I can cook galettes and crepes that my mother-in-law would be proud of and I only found out last week what a chav is. From now on, I'll pay for my tickets. Not because I don't want to be fined, but because I want to be honest. A big difference.
Merci, M. Le Controlleur. | 
