white girl shows up at the corner depanneur owned by a chinese from the south to buy sesame snaps (i love these guys!).

his cigarette display has been taken down, the shelves as clean and sparkling white as new.

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white girl (feeling there is something wrong): "ni ban jia ma?" (gosh, are you moving?)

chinese guy (lowering is head): "nope, suspension de permis. one month."

white girl: "oh. that sucks."

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white girl returns to work and asks her colleague to get the full story. the chinese guy apparently sold contraband cigarettes to an inspector.

all of us showed up there this week, making equally stupid comments ("oh wow, you are cleaning up the place?" / "oh no, don't tell me the teenagers broke into the dep again?" and so on.) he must think we are nuts.

but so do we, because he still sells contraband cigarettes hidden under the counter.

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edit:

white girl was thinking, this morning, how it's only the little guys that pay. and this, my friends, is just a little example of it. while we are increasingly getting exposed to corporate scandals, what we see in the media is surely just the tip of the iceberg. and, unfortunately, a lot of money is put into paying for inspectors to go around your local depanneur as opposed to trying to unravel greater source of fraud.