The Neighbors: Part 1

When Alberto and I first moved into our apartment in May we thought it was cool that we enter from a communal courtyard, the neighbors seemed quirky and interesting... until we got to know them.

Exhibit 1: the 80-year-old pervert

Signore Brambilla is the 80-year-year neighbor in the apartment to our left (if you're looking at our front door). He likes to chat. The first problem... he only likes to chat in Milanese, the local dialect, which I don't understand very well. Luckily Alberto's dad has given me some experience with this language, but it's not really spoken by anyone under the age of 60, so I've never really needed to become fluent in it. Brambilla doesn't seem to understand or care that I don't understand him most of the time. He just keeps talking and I just keep smiling and nodding. But this really isn't the problem. The problem is that he seems to always be waiting by his window to see when we come home or when we leave the apartment, and he comes out and traps us in a fifteen minute one-sided conversation in which my face gets tired from smiling and nodding. He never fails to tell me how pretty I am, and try to kiss me. Now, it's common practice in Italy to give a couple of kisses on the cheek, but he always grabs my face and plants one on me wherever he's old man tremors allow... the eyeball seems to be his preferred target.



Signore Brambilla also likes to link arms with me and pretend he's stealing me from Alberto. Funny, ha ha. The problem here is that he's gotten into the habit of linking arms with me while Alberto is not around, despite my best attempts to stay far enough away from his to avoid this, and only in these moments when Alberto is not around, he seems to get the tremors which move his arm up and down, grazing my boob. Nice.

Brambilla also has the lovely habit of going through our trash. He makes sure to bring it to our attention every time a piece of paper or plastic mistakenly ends up in the trash instead of the recycling. Most of the time, it's paper that can't be recycled anyway, like pizza boxes... paper that's soiled with food waste can't be recycled here. He doesn't seem to care though... I think he just likes an excuse to treat us like children.

Last June, when 3 American friends of mine came to visit and stay with us for a weekend, he looked at Alberto with envy in his eyes and said "Why didn't you move here 30 years ago? I would have had a hay day with all these American beauties." Classy.

One day, Alberto's cousin Carla came over to our place. The next day Brambilla trapped Alberto and asked "Hey, who was that beautiful brunette you had over here yesterday?" When Alberto told him it was his cousin he replied "sure... sure..."

But yesterday... something took the cake for me. I was coming home from a lesson around 2pm. I knew Alberto was waiting for me at home for lunch, so you can imagine how thrilled I was when I ran into Brambilla in the courtyard. Our conversation went like this

Brambilla: "work?"
Me: "what about my work?'
Brambilla: "Are you working?"
Me: "Yep, just coming home from a lesson now"
Brambilla: "I bet you have a lot of contacts" accompanied by a wink
Me: "What do you mean?"
Brambilla: "I mean, God knows how many invitations you get to go to lunch!"

Now, I thought he was just being his typical self so I replied with a laugh, "Oh, well... I may get invitations, but I would never accept. I've got a boyfriend!"

Brambilla: "Ahhh.. but you women will do anything for a little extra cash" as he rubs his fingers together to indicate money.

When I realized what he was saying I looked him in the eye "Excuse me sir, but I'm not a prostitute!"

Brambilla: "NO... not a prostitute, just a little extra something" rubbing those fingers together and winking like a maniac.

"Well," I replied, "there are certains things a person just won't do for money."

"Not yet maybe, but money is money." was his reply.

"I'm sorry, but you'll have to excuse me, my boyfriend is waiting for me with lunch on the table."
Ghast... a man prepared lunch for his woman?! What kind of strange people are we?

Later, I was telling the story to our friend Roberto (aka Mr. Bobcat), who told me that he had seen Brambilla in our neighborhood hardware shop about an hour before stopping by our place. He had heard Brambilla having a conversation with another old guy about how he's looking for a nursemaid... a good-looking one who knows how to "care for a man". Lovely.

Courtyard fail #1.