When was the last time you encountered a real prude? I think they are in fact pretty rare these days. We had one on our trip. She was originally from Romania, so let us call her “the Romanian Prude”. (Apologies to JAW fan. I’m not slandering your home land, but she really was Romanian.)
It’s only in meeting a live one that I realized how unusual it has become for someone to be truly, deeply prudish. And since life always imitates sitcoms, it was inevitable that the Romanian Prude would be paired up with a room-mate I will call "the Wild Woman". Wild Woman, a very attractive lady whose age I estimate at mid-50s (she refused to divulge this info), went to Italy with the clear intention of landing herself a slice of young hot Italian. There was no doubt about that.
Every evening, after supper, which usually ended sometime between 9:30 and 10:00, WW would stroll over to the Internet Café to e-mail her sons, and then according to Romanian Prude, WW would hang around a bit in the town square, eyeing the local merchandise. Romanian Prude was scandalized by this, and would tell us at breakfast “I don’t even know what time she came home!!”
On Wednesday (forever to be remembered by yours truly as the night of the perfect bowl of spaghetti) Wild Woman got pretty hammered on the house vino. As luck would have it, five 20-something men sat at the table beside us. And I swear I am not making this up: they were carpenters from Naples. They really do exist, young Neapolitan carpenters. And here I thought they were only in our fantasies.
(One of them bore a striking resemblance to my azzurri love Fabio Cannavaro, clearly of the same pale-blue-eyed Neapolitan stock. I stared. I admit it.)
Wild Woman ended up having her picture taken on various laps of various young guys from Napoli, much to the amusement of the 4 Germans (3 women and 1 man) at the other table. Meanwhile the Romanian Prude suffered a slow nervous breakdown, at one point actually saying to the Germans “You know, I don’t know this woman. She’s not related to me.” Then Wild Woman got up and went and sat on the German man’s lap. He was lovin’ it, and the women at his table laughed their heads off.
As we were walking back to the hotel, I got an earful from the Romanian Prude. “She’s going to regret it! What she’s doing is so dangerous! Something terrible could happen! She could get herself in real trouble!” I was tempted to point out that I was sure Wild Woman was post-menopausal and therefore unlikely to get herself “in trouble”, but I didn’t say anything because this was clearly no laughing matter and the Romanian Prude had yet to exhibit any discernible sense of humour. So I just nodded and kept my mouth shut.
Then back in our room, my room-mate and I laughed ourselves silly over the unfortunate incompatibility of our fellow travellers. We really couldn’t stop laughing about it.
5 comments:
let us all pause to picture it: "young neapolitan carpenters"
thank you, la nanuk, thank you
Yes, thank you for the image! And for making it perfectly clear that I am NEVER to travel to Italy without my husband in tow!
I would almost swear that you were travelling with my mom, only she's not Romanian. She's a true prude though! When she found out my wedding gown was sleeveless, she almost fainted! "You're wearing that in a church?!?" Sad, but true.
I think the Romanian Prude is going to become legendary. The girls at work heard all about her at lunch time.
It's funny that she reminds people of their moms because she wasn't old. I don't recall her age but she was probably in her mid-40s. She was certainly a few years younger than the Wild Woman.
mid-40's!?
that'd be a very YOUNG prude, dearie.
That's hilarious!
I'm glad Wild Woman had a good time. Romanian Prude has to get over herself...
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