Dupuis, the French "Smith"

We are having dinner tonight at a woman's apartment. She gave us all the directions that we need. We hope.

In Paris, you need the person's street address, the person's phone number (for emergencies), the front door code and the person's last name to get into the inner door of the building. There are normally two locked doors, one on the street (where you punch in a code) and one inside the building that leads to a staircase or elevator. The second door usually has a buzzer that buzzes the person's apartment, you talk to them and if you're invited, they buzz you in.

For large buildings, you also need to know which building they live in which is usually designated A, B, C, etc.

Tonight we're thinking there might be a problem. We're going to visit a person named Dupuis who lives in a large building. Dupuis in France is the equivalent of Smith or Brown in the US. The woman told us that there are three Dupuis families in her building. And she lives in Building B. Imagine how many are spread over A-D combined.

Other common names seem to all start with D -- Dupont, Dugas.

We're leaving a little bit early just to sort through the Dupuis buttons on the inner courtyard door. Maybe they should have names like Dupuis-1 (the first Dupuis to live there) through Dupuis-3. That would work nicely.

Wish us luck. It's cold outside and we'll be buzzing every Dupuis in the building until we find the place that's got dinner cooking. Or until one of the other Dupuis families calls the police on the crazy couple carrying flowers that's buzzing every door.