Home study...
Driver’s Ed at home…
not a big entertainment. Well, in between trying to absorb the Rules of the Road info I am not generally interested in but, I am particularly interested in to pass The Qwtz, I am KILLING a good number of flies… absolutely, the Scourge of the Earth. No scientist, environmentalist, naturalist or, other, can ever convince me of the importance of insects which feed on… oh! Gads. Never mind. My record Kill Rate, accomplished with my handy-dandy red plastic fly-swatter bought at the ferramenta…. or, hardware store… down in Gragnola, the town below Codiponte, is 11 KILLS in 8 minutes. Tiny dead bodies littered the terracotta flooring around my table out on the loggia. They are eventually swept-up and thrown into the fireplace to be incinerated in the evening’s fire. An appropriate end. But I am not finished! Nope. We are enjoying another season of stink-bugs. An invasion. Word has it they were a gift from all the Chinese imports into Italy in recent years. The buggers love nothing better than to strafe you on their buzzing flight from the folds of a sun-curtain to a sweater draped over an adjacent chair… again, out on the loggia. Also, I have to keep all doors and windows closed so the imports won’t invest our house!!! Just the other day, I happened to descend down to La Casetta to pull out a needed sweater… more controversy and from the Climate Crisis: it’s freezing here when the sun don’t shine and blazingly hot when it does. Replicates one of those scary episodes from Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, from the 60’s… I interrupted a convention of stink-bugs nestled in my sweaters inside the armoire and around the window mouldings. Hoping to escape for a better lot of wool or cotton? Chissa? Comunque mi fanno schiffo!
What can I say? Distractions from one menace to another. Tedious tasks of violence of a bio-nature to those on the road. I mourn no Baldo. No Cana. No interruptions…
like the other day. Baldo was mid-stream with his Opening Remarks…
he was in merry Democratic mood. He had asked us which of two topics we would like to delve into for the day’s class: 1) Segnali di Indicazione Parte II (Indication signals, and it’s a whooper argument! or, 2) Gli Elementi della Patente (Elements of Driver’s Licenses, a major tome of confusional details)? An impromptu election was held by raised hands and 2) won… handily.
and then, WOOOSH!!! Baldo raced around the classroom quickly turning off monitors, the FIAT Tema mock-up, ALL THE LIGHTS… a relief too. I always feel tortured by fluorescent lighting... and brusquely told everyone to hush… there was a funeral going on at the funeral home across the street from the Autoscuola Fivizzanese. The 13 of us sat hushed in the dark. Baldo stood by his desk so he could periodically keep an eye on the proceedings via the carpeted corridor, a telescope to the World beyond though cluttered with containers for plastica, carte e indifferenzata. The amount of plastica always exceeds the capacity of any container. A Law of Refuse. Then, after several minutes, and just as abruptly, Baldo motioned for all of us to follow him outside to clap for the departing deceased. Literally, a standing ovation. Not much of a crowd of mourners though. We upped the numbers. We made more noise too.
I love the moments when Italians applaud… at funerals, weddings, baptisms and when not dragging-racing through town, waving the Italian national flag and honking the cars’ horns, after a win game of soccer match shown on a big screen TV… in a bar.
The flower bedecked casket ambled out upon the shoulders of six dark-suited and relatively burly men to the waiting Mercedes-Benz hearse… has to be a modified and elongated station wagon model with great sleek expanses of windows. A weirdly streamlined automobile. Like the deceased might want to get wherever faster? I guess, the expanse of glass also is to show to best light the bier inside so passer-bys can pay their respects by genuflecting the sign of the Cross. Sober White curtains were gathered aside to attest to its presence within. The hearse moved slowly away to our applause and off it rolled up Via Roma to the cemetery, conveniently located below the local hospital.
But, onto that day’s topic… le patenti di guida. I will attempt to be brief…
there are 8 types of driver’s licenses in Italy: AM, A1, A2, A, B1, B, B-Code 96 and BE. A World’s Record, I had erroneously assumed. Checked on Google to find out how many the US and its 50 States might have, arrogantly thinking a definite max of 3… Car, Truck and Motorcycle. Nope. There are 7! Meanwhile, back at the Italian piazza, the versions here each has its own special qualifications as to age, vehicle type, adding their power and weight parameters. Take that 8, multiply it by at least 4 vehicle types and you get 32 things you must get into your thick skull for it to be a possible query on The Qwtz. Sloughing off that notion, I gainfully discovered… on page 151 of the 278 page Italian Driver’s Education. manual… that I am aiming for a Patente B. Can’t say how I feel about it. I’ll let you know…. after passing The Qwtz. If I am successful, here’s what I will be able to drive… so you’ll know and take precautions…
a car, a van or, a truck up to 3.5 tons and/or can carry 9 available persons. I will also be allowed to pull a trailer, legally manoeuvre industrial vehicles… maybe Babbo Natale will gift me a fork-lift for passing The Qwtz at Christmas, do you think?… cruise the byways & highways on a 2 wheeled motorcycle or, even a 3 wheeler, and, the crown on the list is the permission to move about the land in some sort of agricultural equipment, in any size, shape or weight, my heart could possibly desire. A tractor!
However, I am not quite ready to conquer the driving world here in Italy. Must study, study, study the manual and do Qwtzes, Qwtzes, Qwtzes. Only just started the Herculean Full-Immersion Pass The Driving Qwtz Campaign last Monday.
At the start, I was effortlessly committing from 6 to 8 errors on The Qwtzes. Once, I hit 11! Sent me into a funk. Called You to commiserate. Sought & studied the appropriate material, where I had lacked sufficient enlightenment, in the manual, alternating with taking more Qwtzes, Qwtzes, Qwtzes. By yesterday, Thursday, I hovered at 3 to 4 mistakes. Only 2 on one! The Official Qwtz Game is 3 or, less, to pass. With 4, you are bocciato-ed. Progress, no? So, imagine my days spent this week… I sit and sip caffe’, out on the loggia, in our Fall’s heat & humidity accompanied by marauding flies, stink-bugs and, occasionally, the Dogs begging to take a turn with me in the giarden. 50% of the errors are silly ones: mis-understanding the archaic Italian… catadiottri, adibiti, scansarsi, ininfluenti… mis-reading sketches with itzy-bitzy, teeny-weeny details… like a micro-sized Yield sign… on a question of precedence or, just plain skipping over an important word in what to me is the WRONG placement for it to have made any sense. Ooops. Onwards until I feel secure and proven I only make 3 or less errors. Wish me Luck?
Like that famous proclamation at the end of the aria from Turandot, Nessun Dorme… Vincero’! Vincero’!! Vincerooooo’!!!