Column: povera Italy

In front of me in line at the cash register of the Basko is an old withered man grumbling. He has a suntan head that tapers from a large, bulbous, bald crown to a pointed chin. His thick, semicircular eyebrows give him the face of a clown, but he doesn't look happy. He says something to everyone who comes near him, always the same thing.

He turns to me too and although I don't understand him, I nod kindly to get rid of it. He won't stop, though, and just as I'm starting to get annoyed, I see the paper bags of bread he's carrying. Then suddenly I understand what he is saying:

'Ha messo i guanti? Ha messo i guanti? Did you put on the gloves?' This he continues with some unintelligible gibberish, to end with the general conclusion: 'povera Italy'.

Of course he just came from the bakery department and probably took the bread out of the bins there without putting on the obligatory plastic gloves! And he was caught by a staff member or a clumsy customer who pointed out to him that for reasons of hygiene you should not touch the bread with your bare hands.

I suddenly feel for him and my annoyance shifts to the whining stockings. I am also always in violation because I hate those plastic things that are also mandatory in the fruit and vegetable department. When I need tomatoes, nectarines or apples and the like, I first glance around timidly and then quickly grab a few with my bare hand and then walk to the scales with a quasi-innocent look.

It is precisely there that those gloves, when you wear them, are extremely unhandy, because how do you get the price sticker on the plastic fruit/vegetable bag without it sticking to the glove? Impossible. So get rid of those bitches. 

Luckily I've never been caught, probably also because I grab the first tomato or nectarine or apple by folding the plastic bag inside out around my hand. It looks like I'm wearing a glove after all. But with the second tomato and beyond that does not work anymore.

Anyway, I think it's nonsense. Crazy hygiene fetishism of the naturally hypochondriac Italian character. After all, you don't eat the peel of most fruits, which is in the overwrought mind of the Italian with life-threatening bacteria.

And fruits that you do eat in their entirety, like all vegetables, should always be washed well, at least that's what my good old mother (and the doctor) taught me. Also has research shown that the checkout is the most germ-contaminated part of a supermarket.

Not the fruit and vegetable department, let alone the bakery. No, the conveyor belt on which everything is put (including stuff that has been on the floor: filthy!) and which is never cleaned, that is the real bacteria breeding pond. 

And if the foregoing does not prove convincingly enough that the gloves are nonsensical, then there is the environmentally conscious zeitgeist: just think of all that unnecessary disposable plastic that eventually ends up in the ocean to bring the already endangered species one step closer to extinction. to the abyss (or is the plastic of the gloves biodegradable?).

Plastic gloves, no, I can't bring myself to use them with my conscience. I am a conscientious objector to the use of too much plastic in supermarkets. Well, they are mostly clumsy. 

It's the man's turn to pay and now grumbles to the cashier, who smiles affably but says nothing: 'Ha messo i guanti? Ha messo i guanti? Povera Italy!'

He is exaggerating a bit though. Poor Italy? But actually all Italians do that, I realize now that I think about it. The average Italian is not the one at all O sole mio singing, life-bejahende jolly sunbather or gondolier that the cool northerner loves him for.

Rather, he and she are plagued by (often unnecessary) concerns about health and safety. It is not for nothing that the Italian does not usually answer 'good' when asked how he or her is doing, but with the economical 'non c'è male', 'there is nothing bad', in a tone that sounds like he's sorry too ('unfortunately I have nothing bad to say').

And so many Italians close their lamentations about what the government or what the politicians have come up with for idiots with 'povera Italy'.

We are at the mercy of the Gentiles and there is nothing left to save us. siamo messi male! We are in bad shape. Poor Italy!'

Want to read more fun stories about life in Italy? You can find it in the three parts 'Italiaanse Status' by Stef Smulders, available at bol.com.