Toy Boy for a Day

Most days before heading to Mama Maria’s for lunch Gianni and I would stop in the main square for a coffee or a Campari and Soda and the usual chat with the locals about, you guessed it, the weather, football, what you ate yesterday, what you were going to eat today, and generally at some point someone would ask me how I thought I could leave paradise. On one warm day there were a couple of tourists from America that were sitting next to us. Gianni always finds it very interesting that I can tell where people from America are from by listening to their accents, and today was no different. He asked me where they were from and I told him that I thought they were from the South-East, maybe Florida. He then asked them and had a good laugh when they said Florida. The girls weren’t sure what they were going to do for the day so Gianni suggested that after lunch I take them to the thermal park just above the beach at San Montano. I have mentioned the thermal park before but don’t think I really described it. Negombo, one of the two large thermal parks on the island is absolutely amazing. The park begins where the beach at San Montano ends as you make your way to over thirty five different thermal and mineral spas built into the hillside. There are also hot and cold man-made pools, saunas, hydrotherapy pools, a massage and beauty center, and two different restaurants. Once again Gianni had called ahead to have our tickets waiting for us and after lunch I met the girls back at the piazza to take them one by one to the resort on the scooter. Once there we wandered around the park for the first couple of hours checking out the different pools, laying out, and just enjoying the beautiful day. Finally, sometime around 5 we decided to grab one of the umbrellas, a few lounge chairs, and a bottle of champagne down on the beach. Here we sat for an hour or two just relaxing and enjoying the good life. The girls paid for the champagne in an effort to thank me for showing them around and making them feel welcome, and I cheers’d them for making me feel like their toy boy. That night we went out to dinner at Il Briciola with Gianni, and then finished things off with a night cap at Triangolo. Around 12:30 the girls said they were tired and would like to head back to their hotel. At first I thought to walk them back to the hotel because one of them seemed to be into me, but decided to stay back and head home alone. The girls did make their way to their hotel and shortly after they left Gianni started laughing and saying something to me in dialect that I didn’t understand. He then translated it to me in proper Italian so I could understand, which left me on the floor laughing for a good five minutes. It doesn’t sound as good in English, but the saying goes like this: “It doesn’t rain meatballs, but if it rained meatballs, you wouldn’t catch one!” All of our other friends that were there asked why I was laughing so hard and Gianni happily told them the story of the night and the saying that had me laughing so hard I was crying. From that point forward whenever we would see pretty girls around town everyone would get a kick out of asking me if I brought my Umbrella. Thanks Gianni! Ho presso una polpetta!