No Need To Know Italian For This Kind of Thing
I’m sitting on the metro in Rome. Across from me is an older man, and a young Europeanly-attractive couple gets on and sits next to him. Body language indicates that the young woman is pissed, and sure enough she starts letting loose with rapid-fire Italian (the f-word is the same in Italian, too!) and flailing hands. The young man is sprawled in his seat with what can only be described as a not-this-again attitude. After about 5 minutes of passionate Italian spewage and many f-bombs later, her companion finally starts to respond, and he takes the completely wrong approach with (apparently) whatever the Italian is for “I don’t know why you are making such a big deal about this.” This results in a non-stop stream of what I am sure were Italian obsenities, and he continues with what is clearly along the lines of “That’s not really what happened” and/or “What is your problem” and/or “You just need to calm down about this,” all delivered with a slight smile and the slouching posture, and none of which settles her down, what a surprise. She jumps up to get off at the next stop, which surprises him - and they both exit the train. Show's over folks! I look over at the older man who was next to them and roll my eyes. He laughs and shrugs.