The Others and I:
A Satire (kind of)
Mei, the lean Asian woman at the
head of the group, leads us out into the busy roundabout as Fiats screech and
swerve around us like chickens in the process of being slaughtered. I repeat my
standard prayer for the fourteenth time that day: Dear Lord, please do not let me become toeless, headless, or flat as a lasagna
noodle today, Amen, and scurry behind her, holding my breath as a red one
whips by, 1.5 millimeters from my heel. There are crosswalks here in Tuscania,
Italy— they are ubiquitous, in fact—but I have yet to see any local use them,
and Mei is no exception. Surely there are also driving regulations; but rather
than comply, Italian drivers prefer to dart and dash around each other like
ants in a disturbed mound and park any way and anywhere they please—slanted, on
top of each other, or next to the peaches in the super market.
The American in me cringes at this.
Back home, we know the rules and we follow them—when we’re not texting on our
smart phones or decimating a double McPorkRind, of course. We pause at the edge
of a crosswalk, wave politely at the slowing SUV, and go along our way secure
in the knowledge that we will not become road kill. Here in Italy, on the other
hand, if I wait at a crosswalk for the cars to stop and let me cross, I will be
there all day. I know this for a fact, having spent my entire last Tuesday on
the side of Strada Provinciale, attempting to respectfully stare down a blur of
passing Fiats.
Being a proper Southern girl, I
never judge, and so I turn to a culturally sacred idiom to explain the
horrendous behavior of these Italian drivers: Bless their hearts, it must be
how they are raised. All those years
under fascist whoevers must have so scarred the poor dears that they are no
longer capable of following any rule, regardless of how sensible it may be. Or
maybe defiance runs in their thick Italian blood, the way benevolence and
understanding do in mine.
Whatever the case, we Americans have
no such deficiency of reason or respect. No, I once saw a man file back and
forth through the winding partitions of an empty Starbucks line for twenty
minutes before placing his order for a tall peppermint mocha. Yes, he could
have defied protocol, walked around or under the black strings and straight up
to the counter, but this man was no heathen. Watching him weave back and forth,
back and forth, growing winded and yet never wavering in resolve, my chest
swelled with flag-raising pride. That man is what America is all about.
I am afraid Italians will never
understand this, however. They are too bitter, too entitled. In the grocery
store this morning, for example, it took me forty-five minutes to check out
because old women kept cutting in front of me. Old women! One is used to
looking to their elders for guidance and behavioral conventions, but even the
elderly here are incorrigible. No blue-blooded American would ever consider cutting
in line at the grocery or blazing through a red light, just because they had
time to squeeze by before getting t-boned. No, we wait patiently for our turn.
Even if it is 2 am on a rural highway and the only other living thing in sight
is our reflection in the rear-view mirror, we will wait for that green. We are
civilized.
At first I gave Italians the benefit
of the doubt when it came to ignoring traffic signals; I told myself they were
all color blind. However, after extensive Google research and analysis, I have
discovered that this is, alas, not the case. They willingly deny the sacred
stop of red, God bless their souls. I cannot imagine what my friends and family
back home will think when I tell them all this upon my return. Should I survive
the month here, despite the general anarchy, I shall paint for them a picture
of soul-shuddering depravity they will never forget!
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| Congrats on making it through that! Here's a random picture of a horse in Florence. |
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