No Italian

I take back every time I told you I was Italian.
I am not Italian. I am American.
That is now settled.
No Italian would’ve/could’ve forgotten what day it was yesterday, the end of the friggin’ New Year’s holidays, which the Italians have managed to stretch out until January 6.
January 6 is “la Befana,” here, a national holiday where parents give their kids symbolic lumps of coal (or big hunks of chocolate) that marks the end of the Christmas-New Year’s period. Today schools go back and everyone else goes back to work finally.
Yesterday, everything was closed.
I knew that. If someone had asked me, I could’ve told them that in an authoritative heartbeat.
But did I think about it once when I was booking our flights or planning to come?
Not a passing thought.
Not like any Italian.
As soon as I got near any Italians, of course, I found out.
Which was on the plane from London, which got stuck at Stansted airport for four hours on the runway when heavy snow closed the airport.
After we had waited about half an hour of our four hours on the plane, an Italian (passengers and crew of Ryanair flight overwhelmingly Italian) came up to the front of the plane where we were sitting and asked the captain, who was hanging out outside the cockpit (bad sign), if we were actually going to get to Italy that day.
“We certainly are,” the captain replied. “I don’t know when, mind you, but we are. Because I’m not missing the game at 3.
“I am going home today and I’m going to take all of you with me.”
Ha ha. Laughter from all the Italians nearby.
A Roma game? On a Wednesday afternoon?
“Ma certo, of course. La Befana.”
I paid for my Americanness, of course. You always do in Italy. Take my word for it.
The drive to the house cost twice as much as normal (no small sum) because well, it’s a holiday, and the poor guy did have to wait four hours for our flight.
When Roma was playing. (Missing lunch with your family and a soccer game on television on “la Befana” may simply be incalculable here.)
But arriving on a holiday took a mental toll too.
We couldn’t buy anything, so the cupboard was bare. Almost everywhere was closed.
When we finally arrived at the house, which my son has never been to in the winter, it was pouring with rain, and we were tired, hungry, and the house was freezing.
First thing we did was take some chairs that were crowded in the living room back out to the terrace, which bore no resemblance to the place where we’ve spent many happy hours in the summer.
“It’s different out here in the winter, isn’t it?” my son said, shivering.
Yep, it is.
Cranked up the heat. Turned on the television for a bit of background noise.
TV no longer works. Don’t know why.
Arriving here often means assessing what is now not working.
My son grabbed a blanket and proceeded to curl up on the sofa for the next hour or so, not speaking.
I called to get a phone line and Internet service installed (we had it once upon a time, already have the lines, but it got turned off after a snafu. Tried to do it from England. Couldn’t. Long, really boring Italian bureaucratic story).
The woman told me we can no longer get Internet service here because our area is now “saturated.” We have to wait for someone to give up their Internet service.
What? But more and more people are getting Internet service these days, not giving it up, I said. She repeated. I repeated. She repeated. I lost it.
“There’s nothing I can do, so I’m going to have to say arrivederci now, signora,” the woman from Italia Telecom said before hanging up on me.
While my son lay on the sofa, uncommunicative, I muttered about my own stupidity, about the Internet, about the TV, about Italia Telecom, as I scurried around turning on lights, heating, fiddling with the radio, anything to make it feel like anyplace you might want to move.
“I can’t believe all this shit,” I said to my son.
“You’re leaving, mom,” he replied in a flat voice. “I actually live here now.
"And you know what else, mom. I don’t know anybody here.”