When I was eighteen, my cousin Giovanni visited us from Italy.  I sat in the passenger seat of Giovanni’s rental car as he sped through a red light at a busy intersection.  I shrieked, “Stop.  Stop.  You’ve got to stop!”

            Giovanni smiled and said,  “In Italy, red light is optional.”

            Giovanni wasn’t kidding.  When my husband and I visited Tuscany, we discovered that some Italians considered all rules of the road optional. 

            Our most hair-raising traffic event occurred on a curvy mountain road descending from a small village.   When I say “mountain road,” I mean a paved goat path so narrow that it could not comfortably accommodate two fat goats.

            Barely navigating the tight turns, our Italian driver careened down the mountainside.  At one point, a truck was coming toward us, a suicidal bicyclist pedaled on the right, while an insane motorist attempted to pass on the left.

            Did any of those people slow down?  No.  Not even our fearless Italian driver, who muttered something unmentionable, then hit the gas!

On the other hand, we discovered that Italians seemed deeply concerned about bathroom safety. In most hotels, we noticed emergency pull chains hanging in the showers. I didn’t find this safety feature comforting.  Without glasses, my vision is fuzzy at best. I lived in fear of touching the wrong fixture and winding up with a room full of chambermaids and porters eager to assist me with my theoretical shower emergency.  

During our trip, we stopped by Giovanni’s place. He brought us to Montenero, a stone chapel overlooking the harbor at Livorno.  The sanctuary contained hundreds of pieces of folk-art depicting over two centuries of near-death experiences.  Painted, sketched, etched, photographed, these images showed lightning strikes, kitchen fires, hangings, plane crashes, drownings, derailed trains, car accidents and swordfights.  In each case, the victims lived to tell the tale then later created a picture to express gratitude. Every depiction included an image of Mary or an angel hovering nearby.  Those heavenly creatures appeared beatific and not exhausted, which is amazing considering how hard they’ve had to work to keep their charges safe.

My husband says I have no right to be snarky about Italians and safety. In fact, he claims that I am an unsafe Italian American, citing our pickpocket incident as a case in point.  At the Pisa train station, three thieves surrounded and robbed us as we were about to board. Incensed, I chased two of them through the cars of the train. Finally, I cornered the robbers in the last car and demanded they return our belongings. 

As I stood toe to toe with the thieves, the other passengers warned me to step away, unless I wanted a knife in my back.  All at once, it dawned on me that I lacked both muscle and firepower and therefore wasn’t prepared for a showdown at the OK Corral. Just before things could have gotten ugly, the train reached the next stop.  The crooks hopped off, leaving me cashless, but still in possession of two intact kidneys.

Ever since our trip, I’ve considered drawing the pickpocket incident and sending it to the chapel at Montenero.  Of course, I’d depict myself taller and I’d work hard to create a terrified expression on the bad guys as we faced off on the train. And, I guess I’d have to include an angel in the background with a what the heck are you doing? expression on her face. Then again, if she were an Italian angel, she just might be thinking, “Business as usual.”

(Names changed for obvious reasons.)