How not to attract a man, part 2
The sun was gently setting over the Tuscan vineyards as thirty hungry people sat down for dinner. A few friends and I were spending one scorching summer week working on a family-run vineyard in Italy. We had spent the day vigorously pruning and were ready to consume obscene amounts of food.
Every night Catty, the eldest daughter of the family, kindly prepared dinner for the workers. We would sit along a stretch of tables set up on the porch, eating by candlelight as the sun disappeared behind the mountains.
Tonight was pizza night. Ruth and I had volunteered to help out, although it wasn’t exactly an act of self-sacrifice – Catty had essentially given us a free Italian cooking lesson, and I can’t say that the presence of Catty’s hot brother, who was watching TV in the corner of the kitchen, was entirely unwelcome.
As Catty and Ruth cut up the steaming pizza and carefully placed the slices on wide platters, my job was to carry the food out through the beaded door curtains to my waiting friends.
Due to the presence of Catty’s brother, I was of course trying to execute this in as elegant a fashion as possible for me (i.e. – not falling on my ass).
My hungry friends were applying subtle pressure to hurry up and get the food on the table. In haste I dashed to the kitchen to grab the last platter and rushed back through the curtains. Somehow as I flew through the beads they managed to tangle themselves around my torso, jarring me backwards. The platter jolted, catapulting the pizza off the plate and onto the tiled floor in synchronised splendour. To add to this spectacle, several of the beaded tails tugged free from the ceiling and clattered down around me.
I looked up to notice HotItalianBrother gaping at me in bewildered confusion, as if to say “Who is this weirdo, and why on earth has she decided to destroy my house?”
The pizza lay in splattered ruin on the floor. Unfortunately I was unable to a) redeem myself by clearing it up, or b) run for dear life (the preferred option), as I was still entangled in the damn door.
HotItalianBrother continued to stare at me, baffled. Guessing he was probably not entirely won over by my slapstick charm, I decided that a quick exit would be wise. Then I remembered that I couldn’t actually move.
At least I made an impression.
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