Vita Italiana - The Urinator

July 31, 2005

It's our second summer here, and summertime brings loads of tourists and all their cars.  Since the car got broken into, we've been parking in the private, gated drive, but even if we waned to brave our residential street again, usually quiet and shaded by the tall beach pines, we’d be hard-pressed to find and keep a spot in the summer.  We live four streets back from the main beach road and by late June our street is lined, every inch off the side of the road, and half the street, itself, filled with some part of a car.  Sometimes it’s fun to watch all the beach-goers, but sometimes they stare, so I go back inside and let Heidi bark at them.

It’s not strange here, I’ve learned, to see men standing by their cars on the side of the road urinating.  There could be a rest area a few kilometers up the road, but they pee like they get paid per square inch of dirt they water.  Be it autostrada or city street, I’ve seen them everywhere, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when a man pulled over right out front of our house, got out and took a leak.  It was before the morning rush of tourists had completely taken over the street, so he actually had room to pull over.  I was watering plants when I witnessed this.  I immediately ran for the camera because it just seemed that funny to me.  I told Chris and by the time he reacted I’d gotten a picture of the guy from the back in full peeing position.  We just laughed and when the Urinator was done he got back into his car and drove away.