This entry concludes the Summer 2005 diary series, presented on the Lucky Frown more for the sake of public service than pleasure. In that same spirit, it should also be mentioned that Italian beef tastes like it was raised on Italian trustworthiness.
From time to time it possesses my sister to badger me for my supposed lack of friends. While we’re discussing calling-card allocations, she notes that I wouldn’t use up any minutes since I have nobody to call. “That’s not true,” I said. “There is 1-800-Friend.”
Okay! I admit it! I’ve never called 1-800-Friend. I lied so I wouldn’t be embarrassed. I mention this not only because it happened on my trip but also because Rome has the weird phenomenon of professionally phony friends. As I walked back to my hotel around midnight, a man stopped me to ask for directions to a strip club. He held up a little business card map on which the club’s location was signaled by a star, explained that he just arrived from Barcelona, then complained that the atmosphere here was dead compared to Spain. My social life at the moment affording me no basis for rebuttal, I agreed and chatted amicably for about a block up the path while he intermittently insisted I join him in his strip-search. After I refused that and two more offers to join him for a drink, he emitted a loud “Eah!” waved his hands and took off in a huff. He might have fooled me had I not already been solicited for a strip-joint a few hours earlier by a creepy old woman.
I would’ve accepted his offer anyway just for the sake of amusement except my butt itched like mad and I didn’t feel like inventing new ways of scratching it discreetly. Of course, the possibility did occur that this was a legitimately horny tourist trying to befriend a fellow stranger for decent company and a fun time—in the practice of some foreign culture that I did not understand. If so, the Tuscan mosquitoes may have prevented me from going to a low-tier strip-club. But on the bright side, I did piss off a Spaniard.
