The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 1:

“Italy Enters WWIII”

She turns to my first Consulate Official Paper-Pusher and lets loose a stream of biting Italian. I am lost in translation, but as voices raise and speed of speech progresses forward with the volatile projection of a fatal wreck, out-of-control, waiting to happen, I don’t need to parlo Italiano to know what’s up. I have single-handedly started WWIII in Boston’s Italian General Consulate, just because I wanted some clarification. I get my first taste of what it will be like to be in Italy and causing a bumbling American, non-lingual ruckus. I am appalled.

Italian Dragon Lady leaves the cubicle behind the glass. I can only assume she is going to go breathe fire onto some helpless puppies to let off her steam. My first Paper-Pusher beckons me up to the window. Being someone who, as much as she tries to, seemingly can’t stay out of mischief for any even half-way reasonable amount of time , I know where this is going. He’s wearing the same look my parents, teachers, friends, co-workers, boyfriends, sales associates, police officers, taxi drivers, pedestrians, bank tellers, and road crew workers have all worn at one point in time when dealing with me—a cross between thundercloud eyebrows and a mouth that ends in a downward twist. “I’m stressed enough without her yelling at me,” he tells me. Ah, the animosity of co-workers. “You’re getting your visa now. It’s printing. Why are you causing trouble?”

I want to tell him that if I knew the answer to that question, my life would be far simpler, though not nearly as pandemoniously exciting.

Instead, I profusely apologize. It seems like the better thing to say than “Sir, I honestly could not tell you. And, if I did have the faintest idea why life seems so intent on throwing me into the most bizarre and quizzically backward situations, including numerous moments like this when I want to look at someone and say, ‘I cannot read your mind—just fucking tell me up-front what is happening and stop bullshitting around in half-sentences,’ in the least rude way possible, I certainly would not be making my, or more importantly, YOUR life any more difficult and obviously painfully trying than it already is. Do you think I actually LIKE being That Unholy Ruckus Girl?”

So I apologize. He waves me away with an extremely disassociated and imperious Italian wave of his hand. I take my seat again, feeling verbally and emotionally spanked senseless and raw.

XOXO