Vaffanculo Teachero

Last day of Italian class: today. What we have learned from class: men who shave will end up in a book written by That’s Not Italian.

Prior to heading to class, Sleepless stopped by. Sleepless is a bombshell, not to be confused with Bombshell McGee. She didn’t have time for wine, because she needed to meet up with “Joe” for some personal training.

Sleepless, like so many others, was excited I was completing the Italian class and assumed, rightly so, that I could complete a full sentence in Italian. Not so. I gave her some details about the class and then shared the story with her about Alice living abroad and meeting an Italian. Neither of them spoke the same verbal language, yet, they were bilingual. Amazing how that works. I told Sleepless that Alice left her amore and traveled around, returning to him weeks later. I asked Alice, “How was this possible, during a time of no cell phones, internet or pigeons?” She informed me they reunited at Piazza d’Spagna (the Square). Sleepless told me we needed a square. I agreed.

Alice made her way to my house for a cup of “coffee” before class. Being it was the last night, we decided vino was a must. Her caffe, basso grasso. Mine, cioccolato blanco. Upon arriving we were told we had an esame (test). I told Alice, “I didn’t sign up for this, let’s go.” We decided to stay and give it our best. As we were talking about the Italian culture, in English, Overachiever mentioned a movie to That’s Not Italian and told her, “It was crazy, I had to learn swear words.” It was at this point that Alice pulled out her word document titled, “Vaffanculo”, and we slyly passed it to Quattro Espressos and Bombshell McGee. They were pleased and we almost got busted for passing notes in class.

As class progressed, That’s Not Italian decided we were going to read, aloud, “Piccola conversazione sul clima.” As the conversation was coming to an end, she instructed Not a Good Drunk Chef to “save a sentence or two for these girls, they’re bored.” We weren’t bored, we were spent. We’d tried and tried to follow the class and the more we tried, the more it felt like we were Jim and Pam from The Office and That’s Not Italian was Michael Scott. When we were discussing our “caffe” with That’s Not Italian she informed us our translation was wrong because some of the words we were using were Spanish. We informed her we were trilingual, in that, we mix Spanish, English and Italian. Alice also mentioned we had thought she would be impressed with our short fat (basso grasso) translation. Apparently not.

After class, Alice and I decided to celebrate at a local restaurant. On the way, she told me she wanted to run errands the other day, thus, asked Hot Mustard if he would like to join her. He stated he would if she would drive. She responded, “Well, what’s the point of you going then?” Very Italian of Alice.

At the ristorante, I informed our cameriere (waiter), that we had just completed our Italian class and would be ordering in Spanish. Alice followed with, “Or Japanese, I get mixed up.” We opted to share an Italian bottle of wine and rosemary flatbread with goat cheese and sundried tomatoes. Alice asked if I wanted to eat the garnish (parsley). I told her she could have it and she replied, in broken English, “I’ve never had a friend that I’ve had a fight with over garnish.” Although this didn’t make me feel unico, it still made me feel speciale. Cin Cin!