It’s hard to romanticize sitting at a café in Paris when there’s a McDonald’s right in front of you. “Charming” though it may try to look with its lights strung up in front of the signature “arches” logo. “Discreetly” as it might try to appear by “melding” into the unmistakably French architecture of the building. As though it, too, wants to “pass” as being a natural part of the city. Just as I’m trying to. But, like McDonald’s, I know that I am not, and perhaps never will be—no matter how long I stay here. That’s the catch with being an expatriate: you’re never really quite here nor there (that is to say, where you originally came from). Though, often, you are mentally still “there” despite your physical body being “here.” Maybe that’s a key part of why the presence of a McDonald’s within my “vista” was bothering me so much. I felt like, no matter how hard I tried to escape America, it was perennially around me, bombarding me, taunting me. As if to say, You can run but you can’t hide, bitch.

And I couldn’t. That much was apparent. It seemed, in fact, as though my inherently “American energy” ended up attracting only American “entities,” whether of the human or corporate variety. In this scenario, it was the corporate one (though, sometimes, that’s preferable to attracting the human variety of American). I had sat down at the café without realizing the McDonald’s was there until it was already too late. I had made my order and, therefore, had to stay committed to where I was. Because, for once, the waiter was actually prompt about approaching the table and asking what I “desired.” Flustered by this unusual efficiency, I spat out the words, “Café allongé pour le moment.” He rolled his eyes (probably for no other reason than it was almost like a spasmodic reflex for most French waiters to do so), then walked away without taking my menu. A real coup, because most waiters probably would have taken it even though I had indicated my plans to order something else when I had more time to reflect (a.k.a. confirm what the cheapest possible food item was that they had to offer).

Unfortunately, all of my focus was taken off what “moderately priced” item I might order when those ominous golden arches invariably caught my eye, staring me down like we were about to be in a duel. How could it be that I just so happened to sit down right in front of that accursed, offensively rounded “M”? The setup went: me, my table, arches right in front of me across the street. What’s more, there were no other bodies occupying the seats around me to even remotely mitigate the sight, to obstruct it in some way, or at least make the ambience appear more “café-like,” as opposed to simulation-like. No, instead, the logo and name were totally uncensored, if you will, save for the abovementioned lights that were strung up in front of it. Lights, I soon learned as it grew darker, that turned into the strategically placed colors of blue, white and red to make up the French flag in a giant way. But still not giant enough to obfuscate the golden arches, two pairs of which remained front and center, illuminated and therefore accented all the more at this present time of day.

By the time this darkness fell (both literally and figuratively), I was not only about three café allongés deep, but also one pavé de saumon and half a tiramisu. I don’t know why I kept extending my stay while those yellow upside-down “titty etchings” continued to stare at me, unremittingly, mocking me with such confidence and schadenfreude.

Maybe there was some aspect of me that got off on being tortured in this unique manner. Like I wanted to be reminded that nothing (and nowhere) was that special or untouchable (not even Paris—especially not Paris, so infiltrated as it is by Americans). Sacred enough to evade the taint of U.S. enterprise. And obviously, other countries and cities wanted the taint, or it wouldn’t be there, right? (Minus the consideration that everything is essentially foisted on the hoi polloi via a combination of “convenience” and propaganda.) Not if there wasn’t some element within the denizens across the globe that assumed they were missing out on something if they didn’t have access to McDonald’s, Burger King, Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Subway and KFC. The latter franchise was picking up plenty of steam lately in Paris, too. Disgusting though it was. Of course, businesses in France had to be a degree less disgusting than U.S. ones in order to comply with regulations both literal and cultural.

I, on the other hand, had yet to comply—least of all culturally. Who was I, really, to criticize the McDonald’s foreign presence when mine was just as foreign and perhaps just as affronting? Oh sure, I had started writing my name with an accent on it (Céline instead of Celine—no I wasn’t named after Dion), but that was about the extent of how much effort I had put in to truly “assimilating.” And I had been here for years. Years spent on the periphery, never really engaging. Never quite learning the language, only just enough to “get by.” And “getting by,” as far as I was concerned, meant being able to order a few basic items at a café.

By now, I had been to my fair share of them, but, for whatever reason, had always managed to avoid an outdoor seating area that looked upon such a scourge to the city’s heterogeneity (don’t worry though, there were plenty of other homo components of the human kind). Or maybe I had simply never bothered to notice before, had been wearing some sort of protective blinders to keep from seeing that the place I so wanted to be “special” was becoming less so. And that was the case for most formerly “character-laden” cities throughout the world.

As I ordered one last coffee—finances be damned—I pondered whether it was even worth staying anymore. If “everywhere is everywhere,” what’s the point of being anywhere particular? Wherever you go, there you are…in front of a McDonald’s. Walking back home after I finally abandoned my post at the café, I got a notification that a certain dictatorial presidential candidate had, indeed, won the election this year. It gave me pause to remind myself: Everywhere is not quite everywhere. Not just yet. Because a nation’s politics still makes all the difference in how inviting (and distinct) a place seems.