I remember when I was 18 or 19 years old. I walked into a bakery store to buy some kind of dessert after lunch.
I was checking out the pastry section and the women behind the counter asked me what I wanted.
I asked her, "Do you have any Bonapartes?"
She looked at me with a puzzled look and answered, "What do you want?"
I asked her again. "Do you carry Bonapartes?"
She looked at me with a quizzical look and a faint look of irritation and answered, “I don’t understand what you are talking about, sir”.
So now I was irritated and I was thinking that this ladies must be an idiot or something for not knowing what I wanted. I said, " BONAPARTES!! BONAPARTES!! The chocolate desserts!"
She looked me level in the eye like I was the idiot and said, " Do you mean “Napoleons, sir”?
And I wished that there had been a big hole that I could have climbed into to disappear.
I was too embarrassed to buy anything right then so I slunk out with my tail between my legs.
But I went back two weeks later when it was really crowded and planted a flag in the soil of a large potted plant in the corner and and announced to everybody in the store that I hereby claim this bakery in the name of France.
The casheir protested, " What about the peasants who eat here regularity and won’t be able to afford bread?"
I just laughed in her face and said, “Let them eat cake”.
