Italian Italian in 2025
Happy Julius Pipe takes his family to Italy and rekindles his Italian-ness.
Italy does not exist in my home dimension. This is proof that Earth can be beautiful, especially when you consider that I am an alien living inside the mind of a human shitbag. Kuf here. Let’s talk about Italy.
Those of you new to Alien Idiom should know that I am a prisoner in the mind of Happy Julius Pipe. Because of this unfortunate situation, Happy’s experience is my only on-ramp to what we might call “the human condition”. Happy’s vision encompasses a narrow angle of Earth parts, though, and due to his poor judgment and emotional baggage, what I see comes through tainted, except (and this is the interesting part) in Italy. In Italy, Happy can see a cleaner slice of space-time, which differs from the usual gray tones of quiet desperation. Andiamo in Italia. Shall we?
Italy 2006
Happy Julius Pipe lived in Italy in 2006. He visited the country before and after, but in 2006, he made an effort to become Italian Italian. He took a taxi from the train station to the top of Peruiga, where he landed in the Corso Vannuchi, the main drag of a medieval hilltop. He found a trattoria, ordered a carafe of red wine, and smoked all the cigarettes he packed in his shirt sleeves. Three carafes and eleven cigarettes later, he wrote something on his napkin, put it in his pocket, and forgot about it altogether.
From Happy, circa Perugia 2006.
I used to believe in three telltale signs of decline: 1) watching too much television, 2) sleeping through the afternoon, and 3) smoking alone. Smoking, especially, can hide the boredom of uninspiring routines. Each puff distracts from a scar that shows no marks on the body, but throbs in the mind. I was planning to quit, and then I arrived [on the Corso Vannuchi], where each cigarette pokes the imagination with color and wanderlust.
Happy went on to smoke cigarettes with other people. He made friends and marveled at the Italians' superhuman awareness: to be less in the future and less in the past. Italians were content to be, in the moment, as they smoked and gesticulated, drank and touched each other's arms with gentle affection. The Italians were neither uninspired nor unwilling to improve their lives through hard work. Rather, Italian ambition seemed to coexist with simple priorities: talking, drinking, or sharing a cigarette with friends.
Happy became Italian Italian in 2006.
By the spring of 2025, Happy had lost his Italian-ness. To revive elements of his former self, Happy and Renetta planned a trip to Italy for “a European family adventure”. R1 was 12, and R2 was approaching 9. The timing was good. The boys were old enough to endure long plane rides without inciting noticeable outrage in their parents.
Renetta had passed through Italy in both her preprofessional and professional lives. She was the more well-traveled parent: respected, glamorous, and likely to offload those little insights that plant seeds for positive development. Happy, on the other hand, was just Happy. But Italy was his to share, if for no other reason than he had been Italian Italian in 2006.
The children skipped through the Roman airport and greeted the customs agent with mild exuberance. They declared that two parts of themselves were Italian (two among how many parts remains unclear). R2 informed the customs agent that he would wear pants throughout his adventure.
“Because Italians don’t wear shorts,” R2 said. Happy remembered this fact from the summer of 2006. Italians lived in the moment, and always in long pants.
“That’s right,” said Happy. “In Italy, men wear long pants.” R2 considered himself a man inasmuch as a man presses elevator buttons or has crumbs on his face. R1, on the other hand, didn’t like the idea of wearing pants, but he respected cultural norms. As it happened, both boys wore long pants throughout their adventure.
This was their first step in becoming Italian. Happy didn’t believe the boys could become Italain Italian, per se, but maybe they could appreciate the parts of Italy that differed from their normal, shorts-wearing lives in American suburbia.
It was through this contrast that Happy recalled the cardinal virtues of Italy.
Persistence was among his favorite Italian virtues. Happy remembered taking the train in 2006. Crowded stations forced the youthful Happy to fight for his position at the ticket counter. Italians didn’t form lines or take turns. To approach the ticket counter, you had to nudge yourself into a sphere of intermingled Italians and then edge your way to the front. You pressed forward, colorful syllables firing from every direction of your person.
If you waited in line, you would never get a ticket. And if you were lucky enough to buy one, hopefully in the direction you want to travel, delays or strikes could further set you back. Being persistent was the only way to face the uncertainty of the Italian rail system. It was ingrained in the culture. Wait. Inch forward. Take nothing for granted.
By 2025, Happy had lost his grasp of persistence. Anything that took longer than 30 seconds was either intentionally designed that way or a colossal fuck-up. Happy had become adherent to the schedule, a disciple of efficiency and regularity. Getting to places “on time” was the only thing that kept him moving, even though his children never seemed to follow him with the necessary urgency for on-time departures.
To Happy’s surprise, the Italian rail system was so streamlined and efficient in 2025 that he thought he was in Germany. Happy bought rail tickets on his phone, showed those tickets to the platform agent, and boarded the train. His children did not have to fight with the same level of persistence that Happy remembered in 2006.
But Happy worried. How can one appreciate the beauty of Italian life without fighting through unexpected delays?
Fortunately, all was not lost. Happy and Renetta took the boys to a soccer game in Rome. Although they had electronic tickets, gaining entry to the stadium proved to be a significant challenge. After a hard-fought battle to enter the wrong gate, the ticket agent directed Happy and his family to a flash mob at the other entrance. Italian youths attempted to sneak through the turnstile when legitimate ticket holders were scanning in.
When Happy reached the front of the mob, shielding his body from the turnstile miscreants, his tickets would not scan. He had spent hours online, waiting to buy these tickets, and then hours in line trying to use them. Now, after his children experienced the hardship of moving to the front of the line, they faced the uncertainty of being left outside the stadium.
Failing to enter the stadium upset Happy, but the Italian Italian inside him grew three sizes in that moment.
He pleaded with the solitary ticket agent at the machine, his arms flailing in exaggerated circles. The ticket agent recognized Italian Italian when she saw it, put out her cigarette, and turned up the brightness on Happy’s phone. The machine recognized the tickets, and Happy and his family were allowed to enter.
They were the last ones in the stadium, so they had to bribe the usher twenty euros to vanquish the squatters from their assigned seats. Happy was glad to pay. Getting to the seats he paid for was a test of will that he hoped his children would appreciate one day.
“Why are firefighters on the field?” R2 asked. When a team scored, exuberant fans threw explosives behind the goal. The firefighters would grab them before they exploded and put them in a bucket.
“So no one gets hurt.”
“Are they allowed to throw fireworks?” R2 asked.
“No, but soccer fans are persistent.”
“It looks dangerous.”
“Italian firefighters receive special training,” Happy said. R2 was impressed. Happy remembered what it was like to face routine uncertainty with the belief that everything would work out, but the understanding that it might not.
In the soccer stadium, in the backdrop of smoke and mild explosions, Happy watched his children enjoy the match. Happy bought tickets and made it into the stadium, which is not as easy as it sounds, and something an Italian would never take for granted.
Happy turned to R2: “You can’t appreciate something beautiful until you’ve experienced something ugly.” R2 closed his face in confusion. Happy left it at that. He is a great explainer to children.
The Vatican Museum
The next day, Happy taught the children another virtue: appreciate what you don’t understand. This virtue isn’t strictly Italian, but it often surfaces at places like the Vatican Museum.
After waiting 10 harrowing minutes to find that the skip-the-line tickets they bought were legitimate, Happy and family made it inside the museum.
They rented devices that explained the meaning of priceless things on display. It was simple and remarkable technology. Press the number and learn about the Egyptian sarcophagus, for example, or a mostly intact Roman sculpture. How did so many priceless artifacts hold their forms after thousands of years, except for the genitals?
“What happened to his balls?” R1 asked.
“Erosion,” Happy said. “Let’s go.” He led his family to the Sistine Chapel. The plan was to see that first and then admire the other artifacts strewn about the place.
“It’s all so remarkable,” Happy said. It was happening. History outside of meaningful context is impossible to comprehend.
Assuming his kids didn’t touch or break off the remaining man part of the Nile river god at the edge of the Egyptian museum, they should make it to the Sistine Chapel in 15 minutes.
Happy didn’t realize that the museum is designed to culminate at the Sistine Chapel, so no matter how fast you walk, there will always be 1000 people ahead of you. Unless you are good friends with a Cardinal, you can’t get to the Sistine Chapel in under two hours.
“Isn’t this something?” Happy said, pointing to an enormous bowl Nero once bathed in. “Rare marble.” Happy did his best to eavesdrop on what private tour guides were saying so he could regurgitate some beautiful facts to his children.
The kids didn’t mind. They were learning about the various exhibits that lacked sculpted balls. Hours later, when they finally arrived at the Sistine Chapel, R1 asked why it was so famous.
To that, Happy responded, “Because it is.”
To which R1 asked, “But why?”
Happy, having no idea why the Sistine Chapel is considered a masterpiece, even after pressing the button several times, made up a story about how Michelangelo spent four years on his back finishing it.
“He probably peed in a bucket and skipped lunch, and generally, paintings on ceilings are more celebrated than paintings on walls,” Happy said.
R1 shrugged and went on to poke his brother.
Sorrento
The boys discovered the most Italian of all the Italian virtues in Sorrento: appreciating beautiful places. The hotel in Sorrento was chock-full of melon-sized oranges and lemons dripping from groves of lush trees. R2 discovered a spa and modern swimming pool, complete with a Roman bath carved into the deck area. Cliffside views of the bay made Happy think of Sophia Loren, who stayed at the hotel while filming a movie in the 1950s.
They wandered through narrow streets and bought a ceramic egg with “Sorrento” painted on it. The boys ate sorbet out of fresh lemons and stumbled into a restaurant that was set into an indoor lemon grove, or so it seemed. Sorrento has a dream-like quality.
Happy ordered wine for Renetta and lemon sodas for the boys. R1, feeling inspired by his surroundings, ordered a lobster and crushed it like a 50-year-old wearing a bib. It was the kind of restaurant that, after you leave, assuming you can make it down the stairs, you take a moment to reorient yourself on the street because you can’t remember the direction from which you came.
The evening culminated in the most Italian way possible. Happy and family met up with friends from their neighborhood in American suburbia.
Happy ordered a drink called an Americano, which was full of Campari, and he drank. The group eased into a fogginess that was different from the slow burn they experienced at home. The setting may have contributed to their feelings. Or was it the sweet fruits and scented breeze that went down easily with mouthfuls of Campari?
When Happy made it back to the hotel, he fell asleep dreaming of lemon groves and Sophia Loren movies. The next morning, everyone woke up with a heavier-than-normal awareness of Italian indulgence.
Florence
Happy would call his family’s first European adventure a success.
On the way to the Ponte Vecchio, R1 twisted his shoulder doing parkour-style jumps from medieval stairs. R1 was a child who could not walk to places, go up and down steps, or stand or sit when required. He was always turning, twisting, flexing, or jumping from here to there.
Happy walked ahead to keep pace with R1. Renetta and R2 were a few paces behind.
“Can you please stop jumping?” Happy asked R1.
“Hey, Dad,” R1 said, landing a 360 off a statue. “What do you call someone who builds a building and then sells it for a lot of money?”
“A real estate developer.” With R1, Happy could never tell if he was slowing down enough to observe what was happening around him. Why Florence was the place that made him consider a future in real estate was beyond Happy’s reckoning.
“You can make money, but you can just as easily lose everything.” Happy went for it all here. He knows nothing about real estate. “It takes time to build relationships and learn how to do it. You have to take risks. You have to sell yourself as much as the project you are developing.”
“I can do that,” R1 said.
“You’ll be great,” Happy said. “At whatever you do.”
I remind the reader that I witnessed this all from the cramped accommodations of Happy’s mind. This is my prison cell after all. At least in Italy my incarceration didn’t feel so bad.
Italy allowed Happy to think without the weight of achievement, or imagine without the fear of failure. Although he would return to American suburbia and reverse any positive thinking, he enjoyed the momentary weightlessness, focusing less on all promises to keep and more on the ones that matter.
Happy slowed down, enough to be in the moment, if only long enough to yell at his son for jumping off a statue.
Until next time, humans.
Kuf