What? You’re planning on doing that? What the hell is wrong with you Dalling?
Gino wasn’t impressed.
I’ve had some banger ideas in the past. This one though, this one offended his cultural sensibilities and an Italian man.
He didn’t mind my ‘pasta sauce from a can’ that much.
A manja boy like you? Enjoy your manja cake with your pasta and ketchup.
And when I showed up with Maxwell house coffee, he showed me mercy.
Is this shit decaf? No? Then I’ll let you live - but don’t push me. Don’t EVER do this to me again.
And when I mock his beloved Azuri, his current disgust with the state of Italian football kicks into a new level of derangement - not at me but at: those treacherous scumbags who should be ashamed to return to their communities or look their mamma’s in the eye.
But my latest idea that touched his culture?
That was a bridge too far.
What kind of back woods hill billie bastardization of the world’s greatest past time? Stare dentro pally! Stare dentro!
?
Stay inside the lines you white flour eating wanker! You’re out of bounds with this blasphemy. It’s an abomination. It’s inhuman. It’s inhumane!
Gino was voicing his objections to my latest experiment: Bocce in the bush. The idea? Instead of playing in a clear open space or park, we play in the forest. Instead of using a simple white wooden pallino as a target, I use a neon golf ball.
If your goal was to offend me, you’ve managed to mandare a pallino…
That was not my intention.
Instead, I was hoping to create an opportunity to blend aiming, throwing and a game based metaphor to open discussions about goal setting, taking action and dealing with failure. Gino didn’t see that as being possible.
You see, what you’re talking about demands that they trust you. Do you expect real human people to trust you? How could they trust you if you can come up with an idea as stupid as this?
I stood there slack. He went on.
How could anyone trust you? Madonna padre! You serve people Maxwell House Coffee. So stupid. How could someone be that stupid. I should just start calling you Maxwell. Better yet, Max! Hey Max, how’s your house brother?
He paused for as just a moment, but as quickly as a Ferrari catches fire, he set into me again.
Bushcraft and bocce? An abomination… You think you’re good? You think you’re healthy? You believe you’re connected to nature. Fesso. Cafone. You truly manifest the behavior of a man with a turnip for a head.
You wouldn’t know ‘nature’ if you ate it. AND SPEAKING OF EATING.
His voice began to lift with the energy of outrage.
What in the name of the whole damn trinity do you put in your body when you do these camping trips, these hikes, these ‘reconnections to nature’?
He shook his head in disgust.
I’ll tell you what you feed yourself You don’t connect with the most beautiful part of nature: food. You see, as you go tromping around in the woods eating nothing but packaged freeze dried dog food from a plastic bag. Che cacca!
It’s una cagata pazzesca to think that putting freeze dried astronaut food into your body while being threatened by coyotes and eaten by bugs makes you somehow better connected to nature than having a nice veal sandwich.
It’s inhuman. It’s inhumane
It’s a fucking abomination.
He seemed to be calming a bit. It was as though his condemnation of my diet was soothing him somehow. He leaned in a little closer.
Tell me Jimmy, I’m curious. How do you shit?
Seriously!
After one of your adventures, how do you do it?
You eat all of theses fiber free faux foods one minute, then, what happens to your poo?
Don’t you get a little bound? Just a little?
Or is that the goal.
I’ve heard you hippies use the phrase ‘pack it in pack it out’, but this sounds like things could get packed up and impacted.
You need to express yourself every day.
Carrying four days of shit in your asshole is a sure way to shorten your life.
It’s not natural to pretend to be so natural Jimmy. It’s not only inhuman, it’s inhumane.
It’s an abomination.
But as an Italian, he wasn’t only concerned about my internal plumbing, he was worried about my house.
So, you save it all till you get home - what then? Do you pre book a plumber to come and snake you out or do you go to the tool rental place and pick something up to ‘take care of business’ so that when you get back and the shitter invariably backs up with a block of trail cement in turd form fails to do it’s job and ‘go away’?
That last rant rolled from his mouth with beauty and grace. Finally complete, he sighed and sat down beside me.
So, I can count on you to attend - bocce in the bush? I asked him.
Porca miseria! Of course. I love this hill billie shit. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.