Comment dit-on "Assholes"?

My sister is currently dating a French guy. Correction, a French giant. JP is 6'7" and somewhat resembles Buzz Lightyear - comical since he's getting his PhD in Aerospace Engineering. He's officially the only guy my sister has ever dated that I actually enjoy being around, which is good, as he spent Thanksgiving with us yesterday.

And unlike when my sister has brought guys she's dated around in the past, I spent the day being mildly embarrassed for my family (myself, included) and not my sister's boyfriend. The last guy we met, paraded into my parents' house like he owned it, wearing a Nautica baseball cap, a MasterCraft t-shirt, khaki cargo shorts and Crocs, and proceeded to tell my parents all about his "toys". And after he'd run through his own material possessions, he rattled off an itemized list of his parents' assets. I've never witnessed such an overt display of douchebaggery in my life. I sat there vacillating between feeling sorry for him and wanting to punch him.

This scenario has pretty much been par for the course when it comes to guys my sister dates. They come in, say dumb things, and I get embarrassed for them and just wish they'd go away. (For their sakes.) But yesterday it was my family, and not JP, that was the source of my embarrassment.

My stepmother took French growing up. My brother is currently taking French. I used to take lessons, and have decided to start them again, now that I might actually have someone to practice with. And my sister, despite having no concept of the French alphabet or rules of pronunciation, is currently wagging around a book called, "Just Enough French" which she reads when waiting for doctor's appointments or stuck in traffic in preparation for her upcoming trip to meet his family.

All of this lead to a meal with half the table telling stories about France and making poor attempts to speak French, with JP patiently putting up with us. "Ma papa, il n'est pas intelligent parce qu'il ne parlais pas la francais," said my brother much to JP's amusement. Upon hearing "papa", my father felt compelled to share a story about his memorization of a French phrase book on the plane to Paris, only to get to dinner and struggle so badly with his order that the waiter finally said, "What do you want." And at the end of the meal, I proudly announced, "Je voudrais un desirez!"

"Um," my brother said, "You would like a desire?"

"Oh, right. I meant, 'un dessert'."

All of this was punctuated every so often with my sister blurting out her version of the classic French come on ("Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)?") made popular by the song "Lady Marmalade". Only when she said it, it came out sounding something like, "Voooleee-voo sooshwah ah vey mwah say saw." With each exclamation, JP would smile and joke about my sister bringing home half the Parisian metro should she continue her attempts to master this phrase on their trip.

Through all of this, JP was a remarkably good sport. But I couldn't help but think to myself, "This is why the French hate us."