Shower Serenades by Marc Sidler

The shower room in Residence was down a long hallway with an extremely fine view of the chateau every season of the year. It was shared by all participants, regardless of their gender. Apparently the building was originally designed to house military officers, which explains the somewhat unusual shower room.  Still, the individual cubicles were spacious and had doors that shut, but they were open at the top.

Jeannine Athas’ stride was easy to identify because she wore comfortable and rather floppy bedroom slippers which made a distinctive sound as she flapped down the hall to the shower.

Marc Sidler, famous for many things, but not so much for his talent as a tenor, ever alert, would regularly enter the shower room once she was in her shower compartment. Instead of taking a shower, he would often improvise a serenade, “Bonjour, c’est la belle Jeannine…“ and similar arias, quite in the tradition of the justifiably dreaded Troubadix.

Years later, Marc could not remember those serenade episodes, even when he was in the best of moods, which occurred weekly if not daily. Marc has pulled so many pranks that he has lost track of some of them. Yet, thinking back, Jeannine admitted that he was quite a good singer.

In any case, his name evokes eternal fame and honour for shepherding the INSEAD group throughout the years to attend our incredible INSEAD 75 Bezau skiing weekend, now entering its fifth decade (!) without interruption.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email