Living in Italy gives us a peek into another culture and sometimes makes us more aware of our own. As stranieri, foreigners we have an “outsider” take on Italian customs, sometimes while attempting to embrace them—even simple spring rituals, like flower planting.

Each April we replant  annuals that adorn various flower boxes. In the window boxes we plant pansies, marigolds, you know, the usual stuff. But in the pots at the front gate, we don’t deviate. Seems that in our neck of the woods, a red geranium is the official “welcome” flower. Hmmm.  In Italian, a single plant is a geranio, so the plural form is gerani. And the word is pronounced, jer-ah-nee. This happens fairly often with singular words that end in io—you simply drop the o to create the plural. But some words, like zio, uncle drops the o and, for some reason that no-one can explain, picks up a second i. Yep, when Zio Tony and Zio Alessandro show up for dinner on Sunday, we expect the two zii, uncles. So, in the name of fairness and playfulness, I choose to allot an extra i to gerani, making it geranii, even though I know it’s not right. I don’t see any good reason not to. That second i seems to give status to words that they didn’t have as singular nouns. I think it makes the flowers seem more special. But if you ask, nobody seems to know why some words drop the o, while others earn an additional i to show that it’s a plural word.

So we got into the car and drove down the hill to the little town of Sieci. First, we stopped for coffee, because it’s Italy and the coffee here is so incredible. Really. It seems to me that an Italian cappuccino is unlike coffee anywhere else in the world. After drinking our coffee (which takes all of 2 minutes) we headed a little farther down the road to Mr. Garden. Not Luigi’s. Not Maria’s. No it’s Mister Garden. Just like that. In English.

The folks are friendly and helpful. This year, they have shopping carts as handy additions to their store. Okay. It is a store, but not really. The fact is it’s just a greenhouse. Many of the plants are scattered outdoors in the gravel surrounding the place, so we imagined that wielding a shopping cart might be something of a challenge. Luckily our annuals were parked just inside the front door so stocking our carrello, cart was easy and we were spared the humiliation of possibly getting our heavily loaded cart stuck in deep gravel and having to call for help.

We cruised around a few down-home displays and made a second lap. Maybe we missed them but where were the red geranii? In the far corner of one room we found fuchsia ones. Pretty. But not red. Maybe they say, “I’m cheerful. I’ll brighten your day.” But they don’t say, “Welcome.” The only option was to ask the friendly clerk. The answer? “Sono finiti. They are finished (which means sold out).” Nothing substitutes for the red geranii. Nothing. “When will you have more?” The answer? “Domani, dopo undici. Tomorrow, after 11.” Since we’ve been disappointed before, we pressed, “Sicuro, are you sure?” The answer? “Si.” We accepted her certainty, but remained a little less than convinced—we’ve heard that answer before.

Okay. That’s the way it goes. We’ll just go back tomorrow. We wheeled our shiny new cart to the cash register with six measly plants. Five of them were 3 euro each. The sixth one was 2.80. With a few punches into the register, the clerk announced, “17 euro.” She had given us an 80 cent discount.

Having gathering up loose coins for weeks, I asked if we could pay with them. “Certo. Sure.” I counted out stacks of 50 cents, 20 cents, 1 euro coins and 2 euro coins that totalled 17 euro exactly. As I pushed the coins toward the register, I gestured that the clerk might want to count them. The answer? “Ti fido. I trust you.”

We felt a little sheepish as we climbed into the car. We had silently doubted her word about the expected arrival of the red geranii. She rewarded us by not counting the money we gave her. She trusted us.

No doubt about it: at Mr. Garden we don’t buy mere gerani, we buy geranii. We couldn’t feel more welcome!

Posted on April 9, 2011

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