Surefire way to make me sad: put cassoulet on your lunch menu and then inform me when I order it that you don't serve it.

Appropriate method of dealing with my cassoulet-related depression: ignore me as I stare off into space and listen to my iPod.

How to cheer me up in twenty seconds or less: place me on a couch with lunch in front of a TV showing a crazy mountain stage of the Tour de France. Air conditioning optional (but preferred).

Back in France now. It is difficult to sustain grouchiness when you try to type "work" and it comes out "zork."