If at first you don't succeed

Chris and I spent an exorbitant amount of time examining the various cutters on sale: we wanted to make sure that whichever one we bought would be up to the job of cutting floor tiles about a quarter of an inch thick. Eventually we found one which we thought would be right for our needs and drove back to Les Lavandes whistling merrily.

After lunch we tried out the new tile cutter. We decided to play it safe, and used one of the already spoiled tiles. The result was exactly the same as before. Could it be that there was something wrong with this tile cutter as well, or were we just not using it correctly? Perhaps somebody at Mr Bricolage could tell us, so we put the cutter and the spoilt tile in the car and set off back to Mr B.

It was only with some difficulty that we managed to explain to the assistant at the information desk just what our problem was, but our persistence paid off and she went to find the store's resident expert on tile cutting. When he arrived we went through the rigmarole again. Fortunately the expert cottoned on quicker than the young lady had. He raised his eyebrows in time with his shoulders as he shrugged and spread his hands as if to ask, "Well, what do you expect?" His response was issued in machine-gun-style French, from which we gathered that he really was saying "Well, what do you expect?" We also understood him to be saying that the cutter we had bought was completely useless for cutting floor tiles, a job for which it was never intended.

He led us back to the area of the store where we had so carefully examined all the wide variety of tile cutters on sale. The expert pointed to a huge beast that stood on the floor like a saw bench. "That is what you need for floor tiles," he exclaimed.

The price of this monster made me raise my eyebrows: the cutter was going to cost me more than the tiles, the adhesive and grout all added together. Luckily, the cost was defrayed a little when the store agreed to buy back the cutter I had so recently bought and Chris and I drove away with the back of the car almost dragging along the road, so heavy was the brute.