After the issues with our choice of attire for the dress badly party, I sort of hinted that there were other more heinous translation errors. Well, the delay in the post was not lack of material, rather thinning the candidates to a manageable number. I chose three. I like the number three. It is cute and curvy and therefore, a natural.
Number One: We have these fabulous hand-me-down friends who came for dinner one random evening. They have a daughter who is my age so I sort of think of them as my Italian parents. This particular evening, Mama, Papa, their daughter and her boyfriend were sitting around the table with us having a lovely conversation in English. Papa and the two my age speak English, but Mama doesn’t so I figured I would use my budding Italian language skills to answer a question about some of the food I was serving.
Italian is all about pronunciation…or at least it was in this case. I had gone to the town center that day and bought fruits and vegetables at the market. This isn’t odd. I do it at least once a week and was pretty sure I could make this into a sentence. Well, with the word “market” on my mind I told them I had bought this at the “marchetta” which translates not into market, but “whore house”. I did not in fact buy the veg at the whore house. I was unaware that they even produced this sort of product. I had in fact purchased it at the “mercato”. His face turned bright red and he had himself a hearty laugh. Oops.
Number 2: Mr Muscalo is a great product. When your drain clogs because a house guest vomits into your sink repeatedly, it really is the only way to go. The day that my translation skills failed me, I was faced with a drain that was clogged with my own hair. Turns out if you treat your hair badly enough, it will indeed fall out and whoa doggie mine had. It was at epidemic proportions when the water stopped draining. No worries – I have Mr. Muscalo and Google translate. I am golden! Turns out I wasn’t so golden. I took a bit of a short cut. Instead of typing in all the directions in Italian, I got very clever and went to the product web site and Google translated the entire page. Damn I am smart. So off I go armed with my Mr. Muscalo and a pot of boiling water to battle the hairballs. According to my research, I needed to poor the hair eating chemical into a couple liters of boiling water, dump it in and wait. Um…when the granules hit the pot of water a strange thing happened. They activated. They activated all over my right hand that was holding the pot. It was a Calphalon pot and the chemicals ate the inside of the pot. Gnom Gnom Gnom. They hit the rug which I miss very much. It was way less effective with a large chemical burn hole in it. Gnom Gnom Gnom. The rest of the witches brew went down the drain and dissolved the hair. Gnom Gnom Gnom. While we are speaking of dissolving things, let’s revisit the hand that had been holding the pot shall we? I ran it under cold water immediately. I remember that much from chemistry lab. Of course, in the process of getting from the sink to the bathtub I managed to knock over the remaining chemical granules which then stuck to my feet and found refuge in every conceivable cranny of my bathroom. Um, “Husband! Husband! Can you come help me for a sec?” Let’s just say he was not too impressed with my translation short cut. Nope. He did however help me clean up a fair amount of the spill, tossed the rug and the pot. He also tried to get me to go to the hospital for what was a raging chemical burn. I however was embarrassed, too embarrassed to get medical attention. Seeing as I had never before had a chemical burn I had no idea what was in store for me. The burn looked bad, but not too bad. I had no feeling up my right arm, but when I would bring it out from under the cold water, it would feel like I had set it on the stove and left it. Mmmm. Just how embarrassed am I? Nope, can’t go to the hospital and own up to my “translation error”. That night sucked. I put a bucket of cold water by my bed and kept the hand submerged. It throbbed and tingled up to my shoulder. The blisters were growing. Still too embarrassed to go to the doctor I went on with my life. The burning sensation subsided about the same time that the deep blisters formed. I had made peace with the fact that I was going to be deformed for life from this and thought that retelling this story of stupidity every time someone saw my disfigurement was going to be my penance for cheating with Google. I look at my hand now and all I can think of is how amazing my body is. It fixed itself! There are three spots where it was particularly deep that I can point out, but otherwise I have just slight discoloration. My arm regained feeling a couple weeks after and by six months the tingling was gone. Maybe I should have gone to the doctor. Oops.
Number three : In America, guys sort of leave me be. Most of the social events I go to are with Husband and attended by his work mates so it makes totally sense that no one would drop the, “is that Windex in your pants…because I can see myself in them” sort of line on me. But really, even when I go to the poker table I am pretty much left alone. Ok, well this last trip to Vegas, there was this super odd fellow (think John Malkovich in looks with a personality that would normally warrant a straight jacket) playing the nightly at the Rio who, when we went on break, turned to me and said, “wanna go make out”. Tempting…but no. So, other than him, not a lot of folks in America testing the waters. Here, it is just different. People will just randomly tell you, “You are beautiful”. As a girl who accepts myself, but has never been super secure (who among us is) with my looks, I was COMPLETELY taken aback the first time this happened. I mean speechless. Which is really amusing because it is said all the time…just never really to me by anyone who wasn’t related. It took a while for me to adjust to the random whistle or cat call or huge compliment, but I feel like I have sort of settled into and it may very well be difficult to return to the US and leave this charming aspect behind. Randomly I have been chatted up or asked out by men here way more than when I was a freaking bartender…and there was alcohol involved there. Go figure. Well, one day my normal routine with the Italian men failed me. (Again, sort of strange – go from more or less invisible to having a routine for such situations)
I like to walk the ¾ mile from my house to the running trail as a warm-up. Then I stretch, roll my ankle capsules, and hit the trail. I have mentioned it before, but it bears repeating, my running clothes are ridiculously bad. Most of my shorts are in good repair, but my shirts are one disaster after the next. Furthermore, I wear a neoprene waist pack (okay – it’s a fanny pack same as I have ripped on multiple times on here) and bright pink headphones. Recently I have added to this stunning ensemble, a head band. Smokin’.
When my feet start moving, I am all up inside my own head. It is amazing how much clearer everything is when you can’t see all the crap around the house that needs done. So, given my turtle like state, I was startled when a guy stopped me and began chatting me up. I was lost in thought. It looked like a thrift store had thrown up on me. I was so not expecting this. My brain was speaking English and I stumbled to find an Italian word that made any sense. I told him “I marry” and his face went void. Here he was asking me if I would like to go for drinks this evening and I was proposing marriage. Suppose that was moving it a bit quickly. Eventually between the two of us I got it across that “I am married”. He then told me I was beautiful (low standard obv) and I went on my way. Opps.
With the young, the wise, and with household chemicals, the opportunity for translation errors abound! I have one more year here in Italy to try to top those I have made to date. I think I will avoid the chemicals though.
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