Nope, he's got the same nickname as my husband, but it's a different man. Pierrot lives in a big old wooden boat, a retired peniche, one of the lumbering cargo carriers that until the early twentieth century was essential to life in these parts. The Camargue, as this region is called, was a poor area that had not much roads, but made up for it by having connecting bodies of brackish water, les etangs. The peniche would move supplies from village to village, powered not by any machine, but by the muscles of the horses teethered to its two sides, the animals galloping on dry land, pulling the boat along through the narrow marshes that snake all over the region.
Given the must-see value of his abode, Pierrot occasionally hosts concerts and parties. One I recently attended was a period piece: come dress as a Gaul, the modern French's ancestor, and feast on wild boar roasting on the spit. Pierrot not being a very sociable guy, his events are considered a success if he manages to attract more than a dozen people. That one I went to had maybe twenty attendees--half of them dressed like Asterix and Obelisk--so I guess that it was a smashing hit.
*****
You don't need a frontal view to know that the man in the old boat doesn't care much for depilation. This serving as my segue to a postscript:
Blame it on the wine, my amateur French, or my brain shutting down because it just! couldn't! take it! anymore! In my neighbor retelling the story the day after, I realized that I had missed an important part of Anick's depilatory adventures. It turned out that after slathering on the hot wax, she went chicken when it was time to tear her hair off. So she decided to leave everything where it lay, and went to work with hardened goo still stuck to her pubis.
The next time you see a postman, wonder if she (or he--why not?) is carrying more than just your mail.
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