Do Italian Men Make Good Husbands?

 

FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK

Humor & Satire

By Asta Dido

 As an Italian-American or more correctly a Sicilian-American, I was once asked by a rather pretty young woman “Do Italian Men make good husbands?” My guess is that this attractive gatherer of information was either “hunting” or  she already had her prey at the ready to pounce!

 Well, rather than being a smarty pants pedant and asking this pretty young lady with a wild and hungry look in her eyes to qualify her question into phylum, species, sub-species and family, awestruck and completely taken with her beauty, I just barely managed to mumble “ma sure!” I knew this answer would sound as Italian as pizza. And like a child who asks an embarrassing question about sex one simple answer is usually sufficient and the child accepts it and is satisfied much to one’s relief. But, this was no child!

 I don’t know what her ethnicity was but judging by her beautiful blue eyes and natural blond hair I knew she wasn’t “Italian!” I would have to use Yiddish to best describe her because we don’t have a descriptive  words like “Zoftig and Shicksa”-- I hope I use them in a non-derogatory sense. One really has to be careful with words and language these days.

 Anyhow, I thought her to be, perhaps, caught up in the Italian Male and Stallion myth. Looking, almost salivating and most certainly ogling her I thought “this is my lucky day” and all my boyhood fantasies gushed into my psyche—hubba hubba! But when she just said “bye” and just walked away I just said to myself “well her grapes were too small anyway and cursed Aesop!” I wanted to yell at her, and I don’t know why, as she left “ Hey, do you think Italian Women Make Good Wives?”  Then I thought awhile and this idea started a hormonal chain reaction in my mind. Wow, I thought should Italian Men marry Italian Women; should Irish Men marry Irish Women; Chinese men marry Chinese Women as I thought of all these beauties each dressed in their native costumes—all a product of a fertile imagination…

 Intellectually, I’m not sure that people of the same nationality or national origin should marry judging from what I saw in my own family or famiglia. OK, so it’s  silly and not intellectual! I can’t extrapolate and make informed and intelligent conclusion on the basis of ONE or can I? As a school teacher I did it all the time in reports we called “anecdotal” and were they ever flawed! Accepted thought as the truth by administrators hoping for brownie points with superiors and higher upies. So, I won’t fall into that mode again.

 What  I can say that Italian Women make some of the best Mothers on earth, especially if you a numero uno son! We are nurtured, spoiled, over loved and over fed by mothers who are overjoyed with us tykes. For our fathers we are a mixed bag and the brightest of us kids learn early, when and how to approach the papa lion with the big wallet and menacing leather shaving strop!  Ask “Hey Pop, can I have a buck to go to the movies?” and hear “Go out and getta joba” along with a string of Italian cuss words.  Hey Poppa I’m keeping score and, some day someone’s going to ask me “do Italian Men Make Good Husbands and I’ll say ”Are you talking to me?” Funny you should ask…”

PS, If you can’t laugh at yourself--others will!                                          

 

Asta Dido  is the Pen Name of Sam DiBernardo, Candidate for The New York City Council District 32, Queens

 

Email  forlearning@hotmail.com