This brings me to a whole other problem that even the Italians complain about -- the lines at the grocery stores. I had already waited 15 minutes to pay for my groceries the first time around. It never seems to bother the store management that they have so many "customers" waiting on line; they still leave several registers un-manned. My Italian teacher once told me that when she shops and then finds a long wait to check out, she often leaves her groceries in the cart and walks out of the store! I can sympathize but she is single and I have children depending on me to feed them.
Suddenly, I noticed a break! There was only one person at one of the registers. I ducked in behind him, with my two spray-top bottles of Vanish, to make my exchange. However, the two bottles rang up (again) more than advertised. Now I have to explain to the cashier that these are supposed to be the ones on sale. She doesn't care. I ask her to call over the lady from the "desk" who gave me this information. Now, there is a line of anxious customers forming behind me. But I wait until the two women -- the "desk" lady and the cashier -- go to the aisle, examine the "offerta" and return with a verdict. Sorry, but the detergent that's on sale is not the one I originally purchased, nor the one with the spray-top, it's none of the above because they ran out of the one on sale. You can see how this is spiraling downward. I refuse to continue in Italian and begin complaining in English.
Ultimately, I was given the sale price for the spray-top bottles even though they weren't on sale. This is the desired outcome, but the difficulty in getting there -- not to mention linguistically -- was exhausting.
I was so flummoxed when Josh pulled the car up front to load the groceries, that I forgot that I had ridden my bike to the store in the first place, and I climbed into the front seat to go home. Then I calmed myself by eating lunch in the garden -- it was 73 degrees. Nice weather is always helpful in improving my mood. It wasn't until I was going to pick up Charlotte from swim practice -- 8 hours later -- that I remembered that I'd left my bike at the grocery store. This brings me to my next, late-night, escapade.
The gate at the front of the store is locked so Charlotte and I are trying to navigate our way to the street that runs along the back of the store, where my bike was left. But all the streets are one-way around these parts so it takes a few loops to figure out exactly how to get there. Once we arrive, we find my bike is still chained to the tree. That's a positive. But then we need to get the front wheel off in order to fit it in to the back of the car. The scene here reminds me of the joke "how many (fill in the blank) does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
Needless to say this task did not come easily. We were about to give up, and just put the bike in the car in tact, and drive with the back hatch open, but then the bike fell out and that action loosened the wheel enough for us to get it off and fit it in the trunk properly. What would have taken Josh 10 seconds, took Charlotte and I 20 minutes! Thankfully, Josh was able to put my bike back together when we got home.
This was the second time tonight that Josh was getting his hands dirty. Earlier, when he was taking the girls to swimming, Olivia stepped in dog poop just outside our front gate. What is it with these supposedly civilized people and their inability, or lack of desire, to pick up after their pets? There is dog poop everywhere in Rome. It's a shame you have to train yourself to constantly look down instead of looking around. In the parks, you also encounter a significant amount of horse poop -- of course, this is much easier to spot; and therefore avoid. Clearly the horse "diaper" concept has not come to Italy (it could be a good importing opportunity; but would they spend money on it? do they care?).
But back to Olivia. It's dark by the time they are getting in the car so no one knows she's stepped in dog poop....until someone notices a foul odor. By this time, the dog poop is already on the runner board, and on the floor of the car. Nothing can be done at the moment, but clearly this is the mess that Josh has to contend with later in the evening when they return home.
Meanwhile, ever since Olivia lost one of her Crocs in Puglia (see Puglia vacation adventures), she has not had any slip-on shoes or flip-flops to wear on deck around the swimming pool and in the locker rooms. This is an even bigger faux-pas than not drying your hair (see prior blog about Italian's obsession with hair drying). There is not a soul that does not wear rubber soles around the pool. One of the assistants, who escorts the kids to the gym for warm-ups, is very concerned for poor Olivia because she has to go bare-foot. She insists that Olivia will catch a fungus. So Josh asks her if every other kid wears sandals? But of course! Well then, he reasoned, that is exactly why Olivia will not catch a fungus -- there is no one to catch it from. The pool assistant seemed relatively satisfied with his logic.
Still, Olivia is the only one not wearing sandals into the locker room. One of the army of cleaning personnel, a very sweet, curly-haired lady, is always putting shoe covers on Olivia's bare-feet (so she won't catch a fungus!). The shoe covers are readily available to any non-swimmer who enters the pool area. You can't wear outside shoes, uncovered, by the pool. I must also mention, that AquAniene has special machines -- they look sort of like a zamboni but for the pool deck instead of for the ice -- that clean the floors. They are truly obsessed about their floors and the feet and shoes that walk on them. So you can imagine the horror when Olivia has to walk out of the locker room with dog poop still stuck to the bottom of her shoes!
Anyone that knows Olivia knows that she has a mind of her own when it comes to her attire. As if the smell emanating from her shoes wasn't enough to garner some stares, on this particular day, Olivia had chosen to wear a multi-colored tie-dyed t-shirt over a pair of blue striped leggings...and of course her hair was uncombed and still wet. It's as if a martian from an alien plant was crossing the lobby! The Rosenbergs are making quite an impression in Rome.
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