I also learned about the things that we in America take for granted. Things like personal space.
I have a friend who I’ve known since second grade who now lives in Italy. What’s he like? I have a story that illustrates the kind of guy he is.
In seventh grade my class was sitting in math class being yelled at for being the hormonal little savages we were. The teacher was screaming at us for about 5 minutes, and the room was dead silent except for this poor, underpaid babysitter.
“I WANT YOU ALL TO SIT DOWN AND BE QUIET! IF I HEAR ONE MORE SOUND OUT OF ANYONE, YOU’LL SPEND YOUR LUNCH TIME DOING GROUNDSWORK. QUIET!!!!”
27 13 year-olds sat perfectly still.
“NOW DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY QUESTIONS???”
My friend’s hand urgently shot up in the back row and began waving frantically.
“WHAT???” asked the teacher.
“Yeah, you know those broom ends that Roman soldiers wore on their helmets? How do you think those got started?”
That pretty well sums up my friend.
So back to my trip. By the time I’d hunted down his email address, I’d already reserved lodging for my stay. I let him know he was welcome to tag along with my little group of friends and crash on our hotel room floors. He agreed.
So the first night there are four guys sharing a room in Rome. Three of us are in separate beds no more than a foot wide, and my friend is on the floor with all the extra bedding we could spare.
“Are you ok? Do you need anything else?”
“No, I’m comfortable.”
So I drift off to sleep, trying not to think about the fact that if I roll over, I’m going face-first onto semen-stained hostel floors. In the middle of the night I awoke suddenly. Maybe it was the time difference, maybe it was a cramp, or maybe it was because my friend had pushed two beds together and was lying about three quarters of an inch away.
“Huh?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, it’s natural.” The great part was how casually he said it. Like he was stating an indisputable fact. It was the same tone you would have used to say, “My car is red.”
I guess to fully appreciate it, you have to understand that he was extremely straight and wasn’t making a pass at me. He just figured it would be more comfortable up on the bed, despite the two guys already occupying them. But I laughed so hard I almost fell on the floor. It became the ongoing joke for the rest of the trip. We would take turn thinking of random shit and yell them across the street to each other in fake Italian accents.
“In Europe is natural for three men to share a bed.”
“In Italy is natural for straight men to share open-mouth kiss in elevator.”
“Ciao, is natural to make love to a woman’s eye socket.”
Who says that Americans lack class?
4 comments:
oh, i miss OB. when al and i go to Italy we have to track that boy down. i seem to remember a similar school story about him in which his important question to the teacher was "is Alex Trebeck the host of Jeopardy?". you left out the part about his affinity for 40 year old women and the fact that his best friend's dad married one of them- itz Oh K, itz na-tour-al. ciao
...very entertaining blog!
I too miss OB, E you thought you were close, he tried sharing my pillow after you passed out. I swear he is the only one that can pull that kind of thing off and make it seem like its a common occurrences. I still don't think he is from the planet.
Man, I gotta remember that line the next time I get caught engaging in any sort of deviancy.
Post a Comment