Avoir

v. – to have or n. – credit
The French are not at all as accepting of returning merchandise as the Americans are. If you’re lucky, you can get credit for a return, but very rarely will you get reimbursed. We learned this the hard way in the beginning while purchasing many electrical accessories like light bulbs and adapters. When seeing we had the wrong voltage or wrong apparatus and wanting to return them to the hardware store, we were given an Avoir or credit in case there was any difference remaining in our favor.

The other day at the florist, while looking for some replacements for my poor frozen geraniums, I hesitated between two different Christmas tree-like plants. I bought the smaller, albeit more expensive ones, but wasn’t sure if they would be too small so I asked the florist if I would be able to run right back and change them for the larger, less expensive ones. It seemed to be no problem so I paid and went home. They were in fact too small and so I headed right back downstairs. The florist is on the same block so it was a matter of minutes. I exchanged the two small plants for the larger ones, but still had a credit due to me of 12 euros so he wrote me an Avoir. I was wondering why he couldn’t just give me the cash back, but that seemed to be complicated and made further so by the fact that I had paid with my Carte Bleue. I just want to clarify that a Carte Bleue is basically like an ATM card so in essence it’s like I paid cash. Anyway, I had already learned my lesson so I just took the credit without any further questioning.

It’s a smart system because it protects the merchants. Once they’ve made the sale, they’re guaranteed that revenue even if they allow you to swap the item for something else. Credit cards, on the other hand, are not easy to come by at all. In fact, I don’t think they exist as they do in the US, which is also probably a very good thing. What you can have is a credit card that is automatically debited from your bank account at the end of the month. So you have until then to make sure the funds are in place, but make no mistake you will be debited. As such most French live within and not beyond their means and that is a practice that’s priceless.