One of the things I admire most about the Italians is the art of recuperare. In simple English this means to “recover” but after reviewing the seven-odd definitions in Italian, one sees that there is far more to the word than to simply recover. When you “recover,” in the sense of the information age, you find or bring back to life data you believed to be lost. For the Italians it is more than recovering what is lost but also what might be lost if it is not used - this means using the stems of the tomatoes, five types of recycling bins, including organic, using roof tiles to create art, never making too much pasta. Do you know they actually use methane here? Did you know cars can run off of methane? It was abandoned as a source of fuel in America (except for use by motor homes) long ago as “inefficient” – yeah, inefficient for the government to lose the tax on gas. Even the American Government would have a hard time justifying the taxation of shit (maybe). Italians live the Paratrooper motto – adapt, improvise, overcome. Unfortunately, while it is a beautifully quality, they live it to a fault. They have become so adept at the art of ‘making do’, that they continue to improvise rather than innovate. What do I mean? Well, I’ll illustrate my point with a story.
Daniele and I were making pasta for lunch the other day - something that happens in virtually every kitchen in Italy at least once if not twice a day. The strainer was in the sink. I was next to the sink. Daniele was taking the pot of boiling water from the stove to drain the cooked pasta. He nodded at me, hands full with the pot of boiling water, and told me to turn on the water. You know, the turn-it-on nod, tilt your head down then up like a horse trying to nuzzle you for a carrot. I understood the gesture. I even understood most of the words that came along with it – something about water anyway (even Helen Keller understood wa-wa). Yes, he seemed to be suggesting I turn on the water. Of course this couldn’t be right. I KNOW, contrary to popular American opinion, an Italian would NEVER run cold water over just cooked pasta. There was the nod again with the words, yep, definitely water, and open, or something like that. Now you get the picture. Dumb non-Italian-speaking blonde standing next to the sink, dazed and confused (as usual), head tilted sideways like a golden retriever who just heard a strange whining noise, and poor Italian man holding a pot of boiling water, probably burning his hands, emphatically braying his head like a horse and repeatedly asking the oblivious blonde to TURN ON THE DAMN WATER. We were stuck. Blondes should never think. They should just do. Things would be easier.
Finally my concern for his hands that were now smoking through the pot holder convinced me to turn on the water even though I didn’t understand why. He pushed the faucet out of his way, water running, and gratefully dumped the boiling water (well, not anymore) and pasta into the strainer. I tilted my head the other way, still confused. Come mai, aqua? (why, water?). He tapped the sink. Plastico. Scolgia. I got that - Plastic. Melts. Well I pretended like I got it. Later that night I did my own investigation of the sink. It was certainly not plastic. Not metal exactly but not plastic. No way they would make a sink out of plastic. I dismissed it as another strange and unnecessary thing that Italians do, like build condominiums out of cold-conducting, and noise-conducting (as my neighbor not so kindly reminded me in the middle of my party last night) concrete.
Two days later (life always has such a sense of humor about timing) I discovered in the midst of washing dishes a large and growing puddle of water around my feet. I squatted down to find water spraying in all directions under the cabinet, soaking all five different recycling bags. A few minutes of sifting soaked recycling and mopping up water later, I began to search for the source of the problem. Ludmilla was adorably 25 as I began to dismantle the guts of the sink plumbing – “Sherry, are you sure you should do that?” “Sherry do you know what you’re doing?” “Sherry shouldn’t we call the plumber, the landlord, the president, Antonella, someone?” In a moment of pure Scarlet O’hara-ism, she put her hand, palm outward to her forehead, rolled her head back, closed her eyes, and wailed, “Oh why us! What did we do wrong? Why do these things always happen to us!”
I feel sorry for Ludmilla having to live with me sometimes. It has been so long since I was first on my own I have little appreciation for the upheavals that are life at twenty-something. I’m sure she and my son could have some great conversations about what an intolerant-curmudgeon-pain-in-the-ass I can be sometimes. “Ludmilla!” I snapped, very mother-like, “No one died, it‘s a broken sink, for Christ’s sake.” I continued to dismantle the sink. When I had everything taken apart I deduced the problem. There was a long screw that went through the drain cover on the sink-side into the hole beneath the drain cover and through the bottom of the sink that attached to the bowl unit. It was this single screw that held the bowl unit tight against the underside of the sink. The water pooled in the bowl unit before flowing down into the pipe and off to wherever-land. (Think picture on Drano bottle – snake attached to a carburetor casing, with a goose neck that emerges in the sink above).
For some reason the long screw wasn’t holding its place in the center of the bowl unit piece. The bowl piece had come loose from the bottom of the sink and water was coming up over the edges and spilling out. What I couldn’t figure out was what was supposed to hold the screw into place in the bowl piece. This took a few more minutes of concentrated study (Ascoli is always in peril that I am going to think too hard one day and spontaneously combust). Ah-hah! The bolt at the end of the screw was supposed to be encased in a plastic covering that held it in place, then the bolt held the screw in place, which held the drain cover above in place, and so held it all together tightly enough that the water didn’t seep out.
Plastic covering ---- flashback to Daniele holding the boiling water with exasperation. Yep… We had poured so many pots of boiling water down the sink, we had melted away the plastic covering around the bolt. One $3.00 bowl piece with plastic encased bolt and 15 minutes of screwing (with a butter knife) and we were back in the dishes. How common is this sink part? So common that it is carried in some grocery stores.
Now let’s really think about this. Every kitchen in Italy makes pasta once if not twice a day. That means every single kitchen in the country pours one if not two large pots of boiling water down the kitchen sink at least once, if not twice, a day. Millions of liters of boiling water poured every single day into what? A mechanism that is held in place by a PLASTIC COVERED BOLT! What do the Italians do? Do they make a different casing for the bolt – maybe something that wouldn’t melt on contact with hot water? No. They all, in some secret pact unknown to outsiders, turn on the cold water while pouring the hot water down the drain. When even this eventually melts the plastic, they buy a new part, install it, and wait for it to melt again. This is the back hand of recuperare. The tendency to go around a problem rather than solve it. I think Bush should give the country a few million metal bolt casings for Christmas. Maybe they’d like him better.
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