Be careful what you wish for

There’s no value in getting cranky with a world that is not always perfect. Sometimes things just don’t turn out the way you hoped or even anticipated. Sometimes (rarely) they come out better than expected. At other times the things you strive to achieve only result in disappointment. Life is peculiar that way. Things don’t always go to plan and when they do they can still land you in the poo.

So you go into some projects with your fingers crossed and the outcome heavily hedged. I didn’t think about it at the time but I should have prepared myself a little better when I thought up a scheme that I thought, at the very least, would cast me in the light of an icon if not someone almost divine.

My two compari (meaning “old mates” – old with the meaning “aged”, not “long standing” – or both but definitely “aged”) had been occupying the ward at the Madonna delle Grazie for a week when I arrived so they had seniority – in every sense of the word. That meant that they controlled the wand – otherwise known, in technical terms, as the TV remote control. Now even the most inexperienced knows that the one who possess the wand is the one who chooses what everyone watches, when they watch it and when they stop watching it. Well usually.

Well these octogenarian grape and olive pickers didn’t know much about smart TVs and even less about software settings so when the communal TV screen went tutto nero and the sound silenzioso at the precise moment of the climactic scene at the conclusion of a two hour totally consuming movie they naturally assumed that the Madonna was giving them a sign that it was time to tuck in and extinguish the lights.

Last night three boys had been attentively absorbed in a John Wayne and Kirk Douglas western. We were barracking through each barroom brawl, hissing the obvious villains with their herd of lawless and uncivil hangers-on and drivelling over the unclad wenches. John and Kirk were busily hot-wiring the wooden bridge spanning an endlessly deep chasm with explosives as the stagecoach approached but the audience was left in anticipation when tutto nero and silenzioso made their traditional reappearance. My appeals to the compari to switch the TV back on fell on non-comprendo ears. Who was I, the junior Johnny come lately, to countermand the Madonna? They simply jumped into the bunk and went into snooze mode.

So I was determined to rectify a bad situation. I realised I would have to do it by stealth. I had to seize the un-attended wand and de-program the timed auto shut down so that everyone could watch the end of the movies without offending Maria the Immaculate.

Well my well intentioned moves proved fruitless when the not so smart TV proved to be un-de-programmable.

So the following evening, when tutto nero and silenzioso made their move in the trial scene of the remade Psycho I had to resort to convincing the boys to turn the bloody TV back on by pressing the red button on the remote. Whacko, instant success. The compari and I were high fiving all around for a while as they realised that we (well, I) had outwitted the Madonna and we didn’t have to take our expectations to bed with us. Five minutes later, however, with very heavy laden consciences, my mates decided that, with their day of reckoning fast approaching, eternal damnation wasn’t worth the risk and they actually convinced me that it was time to shut things down anyway and to get some sleep.

You’d have thought that they would be grateful, that they might even understand that the Madonna had fuck all to do with it. That’s the crazy thing about life – it simply defies the efforts of really well-meaning folk to replace mysticism with a touch of rationale. Lesson numero uno.

Well next day the compari were discharged and I copped a new inmate. A younger guy (younger than the grape pickers, not younger than me). Interesting. I had superiority for occupancy but he had superiority in age. He took control of the remote (presumably on the grounds that he inherited the remote from the bed’s previous occupant). Lesson numero due.

The new inmate was a night owl. He likes to watch TV around the clock! So we are watching the Giro Italia at 4pm, the sideshows (brawling panel sessions) at 6pm, quiz shows at 7pm, the news at 8pm, the variety show at 9pm and then the movie, finally, at 10pm (in the Mediterranean they run a few hours later than the rest of the world, due, no doubt, to the two hour siesta that punctuates the afternoon in this part of the world). I should have had my wits turned on but they weren’t. As the time approached the usual “lights out” time I was reassured that the Madonna would soon intervene because I had, like my former compari, been conditioned to get very sleepy at the appointed time. 11;30pm and no sign of the Madonna. I had given my “buona notte”, a sure indication that I was expecting a cessation of activities. No. No change. It got to midnight plus and the end of the program and the credits were rolling and I thought two things:

* SURELY it is shut down time
* How the hell has he outwitted the Madonna?
Both queries were unanswered and the show rolled on. I thought, having spent a night at the zoo (Velletri Pronto Soccorso), that I could surely sleep through a bunch of late night/early morning TV shows but it proved to be more difficult than anticipated. I finally DID fall asleep but awoke next morning with the fucking TV still on! My new inmate had no such bloody trouble sleeping through it!

Rather than a nuisance, the Madonna was actually a blessing! So, even when you are certain that your objectives are worthwhile, just and equitable, and beneficial for all, you have to be very, very careful about what you wish for. Lesson numero tre.

I am praying tonight that the Madonna, as she did for a young Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes, will miraculously make her reappearance. Maybe she just took a night off!

[BREAKING NEWS: I know that avid readers of these resoconti will be waiting with bated breath to learn of the reappearance of the Madonna to save me from a night of supreme endurance through another night of around-the-clock Italiano TV. Well the news is GOOD! Yes, she did! Or at least I was saved from the all night ordeal! The bloody TV went off at a very reasonable hour – about 10:15pm.

I am asking no questions and seeking no explanations but it is safe to say that the Madonna can add this thankful Ozzie to her “followers” list. For a fellow who is not particularly a devotee of those canonised it can be taken as a demonstration of my gratitude, if not devotion. No bloody wonder I at last feel tutto bene and am ready for discharge tomorrow and a return to “active duty” on the festa circuit.]