Introducing Jasmine the Singer

Back in May of 2007, during my first spring in France, I was on my way to church one Sunday morning, when I stumbled across my first brocante. As I've mentioned before, a brocante is a yard sale where everyone in the neighborhood puts out all their wares that they are trying to clean out of their closets. You'll find the normal junky stuff that you wouldn't want at an American yard sale...but you'll also find all kinds of little treasures, and what an American would label "antiques." French people call that stuff "grandma's."

So at my first brocante, I saw an antique treadle sewing machine on a wood and black metal table. I was in love with it, but had several dilemmas: I couldn't afford it, and it wasn't a practical thing for me to buy. I thought I was only temporarily living in France, and so there would be no way for me to get it home once my contract was up. So I walked away sad. I never saw another one like it at a brocante, despite the fact that I kept looking.

This week, Joy and I went looking at a brocante that is a store...sort of like Goodwill for a 4 or 6 paned window that I could hang on my wall and use as a picture frame. While there, I saw her. In a long row of tables, covered in dust, dirt, and cobwebs, feeling long forgotten and neglected was a Singer sewing machine attached to her table. My two dilemmas from 4.5 years ago are no longer dilemmas: I could afford her, and now that I live here permanently, I don't have to worry about getting her back across the ocean. I whispered to her that I would be adopting her, and she would be able to find a home with me.

Joy found a man that worked at the store and explained that we wanted to ask about the Singer table. She pronounced Singer with the American pronounciation. He laughed and said, "Non, non, non! It's not Mick Jagger! It is pronounced Singer." (I don't know how to type that pronunciation, honestly. But the "g" sound is like "g" in "ginger," not the "g" in "good.") He walked us back over to the table, grabbed a claim ticket off of it, handed it to us, and told us to take it downstairs, and he and his guys would load it into the car for us.

(It has nothing to do with Jasmine the Singer, but I also bought a trunk/chest like the kind people used to use to travel with before the days of Samsonites and Action Packers. When I told him that I wanted the trunk as well, he said, "Jack Sparrow's chest? Okay." The guy had personality.)

Outside, we got Jasmine the Singer loaded into the back of the car, and I went back inside to pay. When Mr. Personality saw my bank card, he said, "Oh lala, a British card." I shook my head no.

"Scottish?" Non.

"Irish?" Non.

He leaned forward, squinted his eyes at me, and said in disbelief, "Wales?" Non.

He paused for a moment, completely stumped. I was amused...really, the guess-where-the-English-speaker-is-from game is usually not this hard in France.

"Australia?" Non.

"South Africa?!" Non.

"I give up." Really?

I tell him, "America!"

He laughed at his oversight that he'd name all the others, and forgotten about us. I supposed he figured I was a tourist, and American tourists just don't frequent his shop and buy Singer sewing machines.

We got Jasmine the Singer home and settled into her spot on my living room wall where she can be on display for all to see. I gave her a nice warm bath and man, does she clean up nice! I looked up her serial tag number and found out that Jasmine was born in Kilbowie, Clydebank, Scotland in 1917.

I love her. You can see her in all her glory HERE.