Italian racecar driver

In December of 2005, I received an email request from hospitalityclub.org.  There was this Italian guy who would be coming through my city for work and just wanted someone to hang out with.  I’m always up for meeting new people so we arranged to go out to dinner while he was in town for work.  To put it mildly, Domenico’s English language skills were not the best.  I didn’t even understand which hotel he was staying at.  I had to look up the phone number from the caller ID to figure out where to find him.

I arrived at the hotel and he did the Italian “kiss, kiss” thing on the cheek.  The first thing he said to me was, “I reada on internet abouta Chattanooga shuttle.  I wanta to see Chattanooga shuttle.”  I was very perplexed about what he was talking about.  The only thing I could think was that he was talking about the Express shuttle that takes people to the airport in Atlanta and Nashville.  I thought that maybe he had to take it to catch a flight the next day.  We choose to eat at a restaurant downtown and I said that the shuttle was on the way and we would stop there first.   We arrived at the Express shuttle which was in a strip mall near to the interstate.  He looks at me very strangely and then looks in his dictionary.  He says, “space.”  I pointed and said, “there’s a parking space right there.”  He then looks in his dictionary again and says “platform”.  I pointed again said, “that’s it.”  He then asked, “where does it go?”  I responded with “Atlanta.”  This is when I realized that he thought he was actually going to see a space shuttle like in Cape Canaveral.  He must have been very disappointed to only see vans that go to the airport.  But this was just the first misunderstanding of the night.

We went to a restaurant downtown.  His English was so bad that is was difficult to even have a simple conversation.  So what do I do when I’m bored, DRINK.  He tried to teach me Italian but I didn’t have the heart to say, I’m not interested in learning Italian and proceed to pretend to listen and drink 3 rum and cokes.  I understood him enough to make plans to go to my friends’ house that night to be social.  He had insisted on driving his rental car that his company pays for.  It was a Mustang convertible, but it was December.  I personally could care less about what rental car he was driving. 

We left the restaurant and he went a different way than I would go because the place he worked in town was on that road.  This road is very busy during the day and desolate at night.  He starts trying to impress me by revving the engine and driving very fast.  I know that the main police center for the whole city was just ahead on this road and I said to him, “you are going fast.”  He says, “no, no I was going 120 on the interstate today in Alabama.”  So I shut up and make sure that my seatbelt was fastened.  It only took 20 seconds to see blue lights in the rear view mirror.  My first thought was, “oh no, he had 2 beers, this is not going to end well.” 

The policeman came to the window with the bright flashlight and said very fast, “Is there a reason you’re going so fast, I got you going 67 in a 55.”  I thought that was good because he was going faster earlier.  Domenico was silent, he didn’t understand the police because he spoke so fast.  Then the police asked for his drivers license.  He proceeded to give him his Italian drivers’ license.  The stupid Chattanooga police said, “This license is no good, I need to see your American driver license.”  I felt the need to speak up at this point because that is incorrect and Domenico hadn’t said one word.  So I said, “no, his license is good here for up to a year.”  Then the police looked in my direction and said, “let me see your driver’s license.”  I gave it to him and then the policeman said to Domenico, “do you want to go to jail, DO YOU WANT TO GO TO JAIL?” Domenico had been completely silent up to this point.  I elbow him in the side with the correct answer. “NO, NO”  Finally he got the hint and said “NO.”  Then the police said, “the only way you’re not going to jail tonight is if you two switch places.”  I wasn’t about to tell the police that I just had 3 drinks and that wasn’t a good idea.  I just said “yes sir.” I was able to motion to Domenico that he had to sit in the passenger seat.  I just couldn’t believe that here I was after consuming 3 drinks the police FORCE me to drive the rental car of this guy I just met.  As I drive off Domenico still had no idea what just happened.  I said, “JAIL” and put my wrists together hoping this would explain it.  He never learned that in his one month English course. 

Since this incident, Domenico has drastically improved his English and comes to visit me and my family every time he is in town for work.  He calls me his “besta American frienda” in his Italian accent.  Now when we tease him with the question, “do you want to go to jail?”  He always says “NO.”