Qwtzes
A Progress Report…
still studying at home for the Driver’s Qwtz. Feels like I spend all my time at it but,
there’s not much else to do…
since it finally has rained. Not an especially abundant amount yet, not a miserable amount either and, probably a very good thing too. Learning of recent deluges in California, Pakistan, Greece and Libya makes one wonder, if it will only be a matter of time before the Lunigiana is washed away into the Mediterranean Sea by an unexpected and massive micro-burst. Sorry about the oxymoron. Often unavoidable when describing an unsettling superlative. I’m not complaining though it is an odd sight to see my semi-grassy terraces look like mush. And to have muddy paw prints in the salotto. Inured to the terraces’ solid concrete appearance. Yet, three days of the H2O might just get us through to the next acquazzone, whenever that will be. Cannot count on the weather co-operating with one’s needs and/or desires. Better not to know and hope for the best. More rain due on Tuesday.
Injured my left knee being overly enthusiastic on a leg machine at the gym. I’m limping. Also, I am taking an anti-inflammation drug I probably should not be ingesting even at the recommended dosage of only twice-a-day. But, it works. And I am outfitted with a knee pad in a medicinally un-chic brown tone. Too bland to call it a colour. Naturally, il Poggiolo’s extensive network of ramps & stairs exacerbate the encumbrance of hobbling coupled with sensations of pain, especially, when trucking wood to the fireplace or, groceries from car to home. Oh, well… calling the dottoressa for an appointment to see an orthopaedic one.
And, no car. This, right after being made well aware of the presumed environmental danger my 14 year old Hyundai Galloper is coughing up on life & limb during a recent jaunt to Milan with an intermediate stop in Genoa. Dog deposit. Both cities are now aggressively signed and delineated against automobiles classed out and confined to minimal use in town as polluters straordinari. Back on Home Turf, the poor Galloper’s oil pump failed. Must have been the strain of the 80 km/h on the autostrade. Stuck with the trucks. Others can zip along at a 130 km/h. I now know this, thanks to the questions on the qwtzes. Speed limits are not posted unless they change from the standard ones of city, country to autostrada. Anyway, the SUV is really sick. I have written this many times and it warrants the repeating…
The Most Important Person in any Italian village, town, city is The Mechanic.
And that is where the Galloper is getting and washed by the rains in a parking space outside the mechanic’s capannone waiting for a new pump.
Oh! And today I know that the minimum speed limit on an autostrada is 80 km/h, unless otherwise posted. Reminds me, an appropriate aside…
Before being waved off the road by those two Carabinieri, I rarely gave notice to any of what has got to be… roughly speaking… the 11,256,271 posted road signs encountered on the highways and byways of this land I call home. Today, I actually know what they are, what they mean, for what purpose they have been planted where planted, and the consequences of their existence, such as, avoiding getting squashed by falling boulders, being rammed by a speeding commuter train or, driving off a cliff in a tight S-turn. I have not achieved enlightenment, and far from it… so, sorry to disappoint… however, driving in my 14 year old and polluting Hyundai Galloper has become a tad more entertaining and instructional in these qwtz days. Safer too.
In order to insure my dedicated qwtz study of the 278 pages of the Driver’s License manual and doing the qwtzes is not all for nought, I have developed a bit of a chip. Like ex-cigarette smokers, who have become rabidly anti-smoking, I have been transformed into an ardent proponent of obeying the Rules & Regulations of the Road. I never would have dreamt this possible before. And… EVERYONE needs to grab ahold of the same steering wheel too. No exclusions. I don’t care what their titles are either. Recently, You and I had a verbal tussle on the little highway which connects Codiponte to Civilisation. Back in 1966, it was a mule track. No kidding. We were in his 25 year old and polluting AUDI. At least it’s not a Diesel drinking SUV, like mine. Today, A Scourge of the Earth. Like any right-minded & traditional Italian couple on a Saturday morning, we were on our way to the sooper-dooper Lidl in Aulla to grocery shop…. for him, me, us. Our weekend fun. In the short space of less than a kilometer, I noticed You had broken a few crucial Rules of the Road. Excessive speed being il Numero Uno. I pointed this and the other infractions out to him. He did not appreciate it. Told me not to bother him, The Driver. I did not much care for his tone of voice nor la sua presa di posizione. I replied it was My Right as a Passenger to: A) insure my safety; B) safeguard that of the other drivers on the road; and C), if he’d change his uppity attitude, I’d worry about his, The Driver’s, safety too. Nothing doing. So, I had to clearly remind said Driver the posted speed limit… cause it’s different than the one you have to memorise… and, additionally, gestured towards the AUDI’s speedometer, to demonstrate his exceeding the speed limit by a dangerous 12 km/h. And, on a rain slicked road, no less! The cost of my dutiful attention and adherence TO THE DRIVING LAWS was to submit to You’s verbal hysterics for the rest of our journey to Aulla. 22.3 minutes of it. Could have been worse. Instead, had I been The Driver driving, naturally, I would have obeyed all of the many speed limits and other road signs, to do the trip in a pleasant and unriled 34.9 minutes. AND… we would arrive at the Lidl alive for You to shop the Bins of Chance in the middle of the grocery store. You likes to shop, browse, sift through stuff. I have to hunt down things in the Prepared Pasta Department.
Nonetheless, I am exasperated. May just forsake automobiles. I have dusted off my 30 year old non-polluting mountain bike, and if the rains hold off as predicted, I will start bicycling to the gym.
Ooops! Late Breaking News; rains are here. The bike ride will have to wait.
In the meantime, qwtzes, qwtzes, qwtzes, until I cannot do not even just-one-more or, my eyeballs will shut down. Why do they insist on the small print? Plus, the damn tests are timed! Overtime hits when the laptop’s screen suddenly goes blank for an instant… I can’t watch the clock, so to speak, and desperately attempt to decipher a poorly written and often cryptic qwtz question in… damn-it all to Hell!!!… AN ARCHAIC VERSION OF ITALIAN!!! no one speaks, much less writes. A rather pissy message pops out of the blackness with a window, implying I am somehow inadequate AND grossly delinquent too in the time allotted. Despite this, I rattle on valiantly qwtzing, qwtzing, qwtzing, as if my future would depend up on it. And, it does.
Of late, my days begin at 8:30AM with a strong IKEA bistro glass full of caffe’… No. 12 on the Richter Scale for coffee Intensity… and knock-off a couple of qwtzes right off the bat. Done, I review the errors made… if any and by luck… refer to the appropriate page and/or pages in the 278 page Driver’s License manual to mend my errors, and then, off I proceed, ruining my eyesight, increasing my gastric juices something terrible, and suffering the insistent headaches too, with more qwtzes, qwtzes, qwtzes. No rest for the weary driver’s license candidate.
I think I average about 20 to 25 qwtzes a day. I want you all to know that I do allow myself a lunch & snack break and, if nearing exhaustion or, frustration, a nap too.
Additionally, and on a more positive note, I now can knock-off qwtzes with only 0 to 3 errors. Consecutively. YIPPEE!!! There is a special and canned noise to back-up each & every result...
0 brings on wild applause and enthusiastic bids of… congratulazioni!!!
ONLY 2 mistakes has a male voice… by the sound of it, a very heavy smoker, like many others… approving my efforts with a resounding Bravo! Bravo!! Bravo!!!… just shy of a coughing jag.
Ce l’hai fatto!!!… You’ve done it!!! Warms the heart too, if I have managed only 3 errors. If the qwtz were an official one given in some dim governmental office in messy Massa, 0 to 3 would mean I had passed the qwtz and could merrily move to the driving-a-car lessons and subsequent driving test… in messy Massa.
But, occasionally… very occasionally… I have made 4 to 6 errors!!! Lord, God, help me!!!
With 4 you get a boo-ing noise from a crowd.
With 5 comes a message from NASA of… We have a problem, Houston. I’m sure the geniuses responsible for devising the qwtzes and the manner to divulge results thinks the NASA message is hysterically funny. It is and it isn’t. Definitely irritating.
And with 6 there’s a funeral march.
After that I do not care to remember. Mortifying enough to have made 9 mistakes… which I did yesterday at 2:21PM. Yep, timed by the ticking clock… much less putting up with the sounds of a firing squad.
Getting more than 3 sends me into spirals of depression and feelings of enduring FAILURE. Reviewing the disaster post-qwtzes, the red boxes alert me to the many dangerous errors, provoking in my head the commandment of… sei bocciato!!!… spoken by an ill-dressed functionary, if the qwtz were a real one given in that dim governmental office in messy Massa. To defend my difficulties, however, let me point out, the key reasons for making errors at all are…
A) I did not understand the question. Nope. Not one little bit. Doubts like… what are they actually trying to ask here? What Rule or Regulation is being tested? Let’s not be vague or obtuse, please. Is this a trick question? To which there’s never going to be a response EXCEPT from the Little Voice in my head. When in the territory of I-don’t-know, I just wing-it, defer to The Fates, and put an X where I think it might fly right. Then, I pray. But, my prayers are sometimes not answered. Must be ‘cause I am not a Catholic, do you think?; B) I didn’t understand the archaic Italian from the epoch of Emperor & King, Carlo Quinto, say, back in 1590 AD?; and C) every now & then, I can honestly admit to you, Dear Readers, I can lack knowing the material. For instance…
What is the speed limit for un’autoveicolo… a car… weighing in at no more than 3,500 kg on a highway, which is NOT un’autostrada… the precise term is una strada extra-urbana principale, colloquially called una superstrada by normal, everyday, breathing Italians… tugging a speed boat on a trailer, similarly weighing in at no more than 3,500 kg? I now know the correct answer is 70 km/h. That Red box told me so. You now know too.
Through all of the above, I dream to fly away from this Never, Never Land of qwtzes. Another fantasy is God, Himself, will come and alight upon on the face of His august creation, Earth, and ceremoniously arrange for me to receive A Special Dispensation under His supervision for my sequestered American Driver’s License to be, instantaneously, transformed into an Italian one. A plastic card too. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
I am not holding my breath. Instead, I will do qwtzes, qwtzes qwtzes, until I feel ready to call Baldo and tell him… Let’s go to messy Massa.