Scuzi! Scuzi!

Ask and ye shall receive!

Well, no, not the pictures. I haven't gotten them up yet. I will. I promise. It's just that there's so many of them...I have to sort through and pick out the good ones so you don't have (literally) a thousand to go through. See? I'm really doing you a favor here.

But I will tell The Story of the Creepy Italian Guy.

So, to set the scene, it's day 8. Contrary to popular belief (or maybe no one believes this, I don't know), there aren't a lot of Italian hotties running around. There weren't a lot of hotties in France, either. London? They were everywhere. London is the Hot Guy Capital. However, there is a good chance that a majority of them were gay. Because, being American, I have been trained to believe that men who take that much care of themselves, dress in pink Oxford shirts, and have styled hair are gay.

But anyway, by this time, the 70 girls were starved for some visual ass. So we arrive in Rome and sit down to dinner at the hotel. And what should appear? A very good-looking young waiter. I can't say he was hot, because he was maybe 17. Perfect for them, but a little pervy for me.

Being girls - an entire roomful of girls - they start whispering amongst themselves immediately. Covert pictures were taken, dares were offered, giggles abounded, shy smiles were, um, smiled. At one point, someone scored the win of the night by finding out his name: Marco.

As subtle as they may have thought they were being, they - how should I say this? - weren't. At all. He was soaking up the attention and flirting right back.

Later that night, after bed check, some of the girls were shocked - SHOCKED - to hear a knock at their door. Who should it be but Marco, the cute waiter.

"So, you want-ta party?" he asked when they opened the door. (You have to imagine this said in a bad Italian accent for full effect.)

He went around and did this to several of the girls' rooms. In telling this story the next morning to the chaperones, they all claimed to have slammed the door in his face. Which I, of course, totally don't at all believe.

It was quite obvious that they were expecting sympathy, outrage, and shock from the chaperones. Perhaps to have one of the male teachers cut off Marco's man bits in a rage. Or for them to go immediately to the manager and demand Marco's termination. What they did not expect was to have the teachers laugh. In their faces. And say, and I quote, "I told you so!"

You see, just a few hours before The Incident, the tour guide explicitly told them that European men - Italians in particular - love the ladies (this and all that follows are what are known as generalizations, so please no hate mail). They take any advance as an invitation. And they tend to think that American women are easy. So the girls were warned to be more subtle and not to flirt with a guy unless they did intend to, um, well, you know.

Which they promptly ignored.

So that's the Marco story. It's really much funnier if you say "So you want-ta party?" with an accent, as recommended. So if you didn't do that the first time 'round, no wonder you didn't find it funny. Go back and read it again. And maybe put your arms out a bit and wiggle your fingers. That helps too.