Half-Assed Job in Provincetown - Figura di cacca a Provincetown

I always thought ill of those people (in Italy, off-course), who have no problems letting their dog defecate on the street, in front of everyone, and then go without taking the stinking steaming crap with them.  Not that looking at the cringing disgusted British collecting their crap makes me feel any better but I do have some sort of admiration for the happy nonchalant Americans who yank out their plastic bags, thrust their hands inside, grab the crap, quickly pull the bags inside out and make it disappear in half a second, while they are talking about the latest red sox game.

We decided to partly spend this past weekend (Ferragosto), which in Italy marks the end of the summer, on a Cape Cod Bay tour with destination Provincetown, a town at the very tip of the Cape. I love this town because it is a place where you cannot just pass by but a place where you are forced to stop (you cannot drive any further),  a place where you are forced to  relax, walk  on the beach, eat lobster, browse through the hidden gems (and unconventional junk) in the small stores, drink all afternoon in front of the ocean and where it is ok to go against the rules.  There, you might see a man walking down the street with a green wig, a Portuguese fisherman drinking a beer outside in the fresh air,  Japanese tourists taking a gazillion photos of their lobster and two Mexican-American lesbians with an Asian baby. It all seems to come together in this small town, where everyone lives their life side by side like in London, and where if anyone does something abnormal, who cares.

The strange thing about Provincetown is that when you are there, it is hard not to let your guard down. Once there, you know that sooner or later, you'll find yourself either buying something that you were not supposed to buy or you'll miss the last boat to go home. Well, this time a far more awkward thing has happened to us.

We decided to take the ferry to Provincetown after reading this ad: it is fast, luxurious and takes 90-minutes (half the time it would take to drive)! Truth is... we managed to get there in two hours. Not a big problem if the sea hadn't been so unkind to me.

Once my feet were back on the ground and I could think clear again, I decided to hit the Lobster Pot, my favorite restaurant in Provincetown (fresh seafood but fuss free). There, it didn't take me long to relax... until William - typical! - started calling my attention.

"Fatto cacca, fatto cacca mamma! (I have pooped, I have pooped, mom!)

Aniamo cacca?" (are we going to crap? meaning: are we going to the toilet?)

"Can you at least wait until I am done with my lobster bisque? Can the potty wait?"

"Vai! Vai! Vai!" (Go! Go! Go!)

John was the one on potty-training call, so I took the time to enjoy the remaining sips of my lobster soup, while John was dealing with the unpleasant matter. After a while I saw a giggling William coming back to my table.

John: "His diaper was all dry but I changed it anyway. Waste of time!"
Ten seconds later...

William:"Fatto cacca, fatto cacca! Vai! Vai! Vai! (I have pooped, I have pooped! Take me to the toilet!)

We figured that William was not so desperate to use the toilet. He was probably only trying to find a way to escape from the high-chair. So we decided to stop listening to his irrational requests and tried to finish our lunch without thinking twice about toilet matters. Before leaving the restaurant I checked Tronk's diaper one more time. Everything was under control.

After lunch, we spent few minutes in an art gallery. Then I saw a store selling silver jewelry, the antique type that my mother loves, so I dragged John and William there and managed to find my mother's birthday present! In Boston it would have taken me months to find something with that antique look. While the shop assistant, who was talking with a foreign accent, was putting my precious gift into a cute little bag, William was running around the store to look at the shining pieces of jewelry through the windows, when John, all of a sudden, made an abrupt movement with his legs and said something, first in a state of surprise then in a state of panic that I rarely see on him.

"Who is this coming from? Was that dog who did it?" He then quickly put one leg in front of the big piece of crap to stop others from stepping on it and we both looked at it inquisitively.

"Oh my God! " The green and orange tones of the carrot and of the zucchini couldn't be more truth revealing! "That's what we feed Tronk!" At this point, John, who no longer has a dog, whispered anxiously, "Give me a wipe, give me a wipe!", in the true American style, and in less then seconds, the guilty object disappeared.

"How did it happen?" I asked John on the other side of the street, while trying to escape from the crime scene.

It turned out that John had literally done a half-assed job with Tronk's diaper in the restaurant so poop came out from one side of his diaper in the jewelry store. Luckily, I don't think anybody understood that there was a big piece of shit in the floor in the middle of the jewelry store and even if someone did, nobody cares in Provincetown.