The Honest Truth

My eyes burn.

I’m surrounded by rows  of ceramics: plates, vases, ashtrays. There’s something about these grey warehouse walls and the vast space filled with shelving that makes everything look the same.

I hate buying souvenirs.

I’m with my Cousin, who lives in Northern Italy, his wife, and ten-year-old son in a small South Western Sicilian town called Caltagirone (http://www.pbase.com/bauer/caltagirone, check out the pictures, my souvenir to you). It’s late August, and we’re visiting his parents (My great aunt&uncle) and sister (my cousin) in Sicily.

The sun is shining and we’ve just finished a delicious “granita a frutti di bosco”, a high-class slushy made with blueberries and rasberries, typical of the region. Everything is going well, until I feel the need to commemorate how well it’s going by buying things.

It starts at the top of 142 stairs. Caltagirone is known for its staircase leading up to Santa Maria church, each step framed by cermaic tiles.

Once I get to the top,  my adrenaline’s pumping, I’m feeling in love with Italy, and convienently, there’s a souvenir shop a few steps down.

This isn’t your eiffel tower rubber keychain souvenir store either. We’re authentic cermaics from a small town not even some of the most Italians of Italians have been to. Even a cheap-ass like me knows it’s time to spend…

What do I decide to buy? Obviously a gift for my Italian cousins I’m with who come here everytime they’re in Sicily. Obviously.

I hate buying souvenirs because I’m bad at it. I want everything to be meaningful. I can’t buy a souvenir, it has to buy me. It has to sell me on the fact that its colours, its form, its very being is exactly right for you, you and you.

This goes inherently against the nature of souvenirs: designed to be cheap reminders that you thought of your loved ones in a place they might never go to…for 5 minutes and euros.

In this case, I make a worse mistake. I try to make a souvenir into the most meaningful thing of all: a gift.

I spot an espresso set painted with lemons and blue swirls. I remember my cousin’s wife saying she has an entire set of lemon dishware from the town. It’s perfect. I’ll add the missing piece.

I give 25£ to a dodgy-looking guy claiming to have made all the ceramics and walk out the store rich is smugness.

After joining my cousin and his wife at the bottom of the stairs, this feeling ends a block later when we arrive at their favourite, authentic, ceramic store.

I watch in horror as my cousin’s wife buys some lemon-decorated plates that are smaller, and match her set at home. As she laments over the fact she can’t buy as many as she likes, I let my golden opportunity to “buy some for my mom” pass, feeling too weighted down by the bag in my hand.

The regret doesn’t end end here. For the grand finale, they take me to a warehouse, announcing it’s the best, cheapest place to buy ceramics in Caltagirone. When in Rome…follow a Roman.

Here I realize not only did I buy the wrong pattern of lemon, but I got ripped off. As is the case with most things sold from a warehouse, I see the same set for less than half the price I paid.

Like a guy with a small penis, I look to compensate.

I notice my cousin and his wife bringing armloads of things to the cash, and I start thinking of people back home I could by things for. People who will think what I buy them is cool by virtue that it comes from far away.

I stare for awhile at a modern looking ceramic ashtray splashed with bright colours. I like it. I have friends who would gladly impress guests by saying their ashtray is Sicilian. Maybe I should get two? What the hell…maybe five?

My cousin, who demands attention by virtue of his size, walks by and says dismissingly the ashtray is a poor attempt to modernize an old design. The authentic stuff are the ceramics with traditional blues, yellows and greens.

Reluctantly I take a walk down the aisles, one cermaic blurring into the next. I try to appreciate the classical style of decorating, with fruits and nature, but I don’t have an aunt Gertrude with a country home that needs more flair…

I slyly wander back to the ashtrays, and look both ways to make sure my cousin isn’t lingering. I alternate for a while between picking it up, picking it down, justifying why I shouldn’t buy it, justifying why I should buy more than one.

I settle, as I normally do, with a rational in between. I quickly take an ashtray to the cash and pay for it like I’m making a drug deal.

That night, I can’t get to sleep. I’m thinking about my other cousin, the one who lives in Sicily, and how I haven’t bought them anything to thank them for their hospitality.

There’s that tooney I have at the bottom of my backpack..? I toss and turn, trying to avoid what seems to be my only option.

I can’t…that’s stupid…they live a stonesthrow from the town…but it looks modern…my cousin is a modern woman, she even reads a magazine called donna moderna…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I wake up early the next morning and go straight to van. I open the door, reach into my bag and pull out the ashtray. Inside, I place it on the kitchen table, and write a thank you note.

Dear reader: if you were hoping for an Italian souvenir, I’m sorry. I’ll pick you up some maple syrup from the Ottawa airport.