How about a Bowl of hearty-har-har Soup?

It began early in the morning, as we were leaving Orvieto and heading for Sienna (actually Siena.  Why we added an extra 'n' in English is beyond me.  Then again, look at how many ways we can spell Kadafy -- or is it Quadhafi?)  I woke up with a sincere and powerful desire for a bowl of soup -- a bowl of thick, dense, chunky, stew-like soup. I thought about it all through our train trip. I became obsessed with the idea (Go figure!) and had gotten beyond wanting and well into the craving zone, which lies at the doorstep of jonesing, not far from desert thirst.

You know that place.  Your whole body seems to be screaming for something.  I get it most often with very rare meat.  I feel like if I don't get a barely singed steak soon, I might just walk up to a cow and take a bite out of its ass. I apologize to all the vegetarians.  I feel horrible about the animal on animal violence of it; but it is a fact of my nature, like:

The way I can't wait till I can scratch my balls, 

The absolute rush of itching the inside of my ear with a Q-tip till my eyes close and I start to drool uncontrollably.

How I can't think of anything else until I get the fucking splinter out of my finger.

I became a man in NEED of soup.  I formulated how I would ask for the soup of my dreams. I knew I wanted a hearty ( I suspected hearty . . . body part . . . syntactical trap. . . might not translate well.)   I wanted a . . . robust . . . soup.  I grant you there is a bit of poetry here, but . . .


I composed the sentence, checked the grammar, repeated it over and over to myself

"Volgio prendere una ciotola di zuppa robusta,"

 -- which is a technique I found myself using often . . . (could be the OCD and the caffeine) . . .  but I think when you're studying another language, there's a tendency to reduce the potential for public embarrassment by rehearsing phrases you know you're going to use so that, when confronted with the anticipated situation, you don't stumble around looking for words, suddenly trying to remember the appropriate grammar, etc. 

Good morning, we would like two glasses of orange juice, some cheese, and some bread.

"Buongiorno, vorremmo due bicchieri di spermuta d'arancia, del formaggio e del pane".

Check, please!

"Il conto, per favore!"

Throw in a couple of "Grazie" and you've got breakfast covered.

Of course it doesn't always work. You go into the store, anticipating that someone will tell you how much your grocery purchase costs and, while you're formulating your reaction (one last review of the numbers and how they work), they ask you if you want a bag because, if you do, they're going to charge you more.  In the span of a single second, you transform from comprehensible, possibly-intelligent, albeit foreign, person, to a cretinous, glassy-eyed mute.

INT. THEATRE - EVENING

It's a packed house.  A young actor (dressed as a medieval knight) stands at attention center stage, awaiting the cue for his premiere Broadway line.  He's breathing heavily in anticipation, repeating the same expression over and over under his breath.

ACTOR

(soto voce)

Hark, are those the guns I hear? Hark are those the guns I hear? Hark are those the guns I hear?

He inhales deeply, holds, anticipates.   There's an HUGE EXPLOSION off stage.

ACTOR

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!!!???

Despite several such incidents, I had, by that point in the trip, gotten a little comfortable inititing conversations.  Imbued with need, lubricated with over-confidence, I had practiced the line all day.  When we got into the taxi cab, settled in a little, exchanged pleasantries with the driver, made some distance from the railway station and started to see restaurants along the road, I decided to broach the subject with the driver.  I said, 

"Volgio prendere una ciotola di zuppa robusta."

I want to get a bowl of robust soup.

It is an understatement to say that the man laughed. He was laughing so hard I thought he was going to crash the car. He slapped the steering wheel; he giggled; he snorted; tears ran down his cheeks. He was gasping for air. It was as though I had told him I wanted to eat a bowl of camel scrotums. There was no explanation. Not a word. I asked him what was so funny. He just repeated the sentence word for word and resumed his uproarious laughter.  So I stopped asking and he finally stopped laughing and, after he had gathered himself, told me that the local specialty soup was called ribollito and he thought I should try that.

For days, I was haunted by visions of him sitting at dinner with his family, repeating the sentence over and over, and his little kid blowing milk out his nose, and his wife laughing so hard that she farts and gets them all laughing again.

But . . . it turned out that:

The bowl of ribollito was thick, dense, chunky and robust.

"La ciotola di ribollito era spessa, densa, grosso e robusto."

I'll bet that cabbie would have had a hemorrhage about that one!

I think Mick Jagger said it best: 

You can't always get what you want, but if you try some time, you just might find you get what you need.

Non si può sempre ottenere quello che vuoi, ma se si prova un certo tempo, si potrebbe trovare che si ottiene quello che ti serve.