My Big Fat Italian Funeral
Well, I have just helped bury my dear friend, Jenny Gardino, who died after a terrible car accident. It's so hard to believe she's not here anymore, mostly because she would have loved every second of the hullabaloo that ensued after her death.
I have seen the Big Fat Greek Wedding movie and I understand it was pretty accurate in its representation of the family. I am going to make my own movie with the above title. Although Jenny was not Italian, she married into it and I am only sorry we didn't know each other when she got married because I would have loved to have seen that wedding!
Here are my observations on Italians:
There are lots of them. They travel in huge packs of twenty or thirty and they are nearly always hungry. They respond well to love and they can hold their liquor. They all look like each other, which is extremely confusing when you are hosting them. You can't remember if you are talking to Vinnie or his cousin Spike or it could even be cousin Theresa if she hasn't waxed her mustache in a couple of weeks. Italians are very emotional and they either wear their hearts on their sleeves or threaten to hit you with cooking utensils.
After the wake on Thursday night, we put the food out and a hush fell over the house. All you could hear was the sound of chewing. It was as if a plague of grasshoppers had descended, mowing through chicken and rice and lasagna and garlic bread. The buffet table was totally decimated. I actually thought for a few minutes we were missing some of the children and I was afraid they had been consumed in the rush, but they turned up safe and sound. Only one of them had bite marks.
The next night, after the funeral, Donnie got pizza. He only ordered six. When he told me this, I immediately told him to order more. "But they're eighteen inches," he told me. "That's 80 slices."
"Donnie, I've seen what your family can do to casseroles," I told him. "You have to order more." Typical man, he ignored me.
As soon as the car door slammed, Italian cousins started pouring out of every crevice in the house. It was like someone had set off a giant oregano bomb and they were all pouring out of their holes to consume pizza. He came up the walk, bearing the pizzas aloft, with grown uncles hanging on to his arms, trying to reach the pizzas. By the time he actually staggered into the house, it looked like a feeding frenzy from an episode of Shark Week.
Donnie's mother, wise Italian grandmother she is, called for a pizza cutter so she could cut the slices in half. The relatives were snapping and biting at each other, crazed by the aromas of garlic and pepperoni. She couldn't get the slices on plates fast enough. In ten minutes, five of those six giant pizzas were devoured down to the grease stains on the cardboard and the relatives were mournfully looking for more.
Tim takes the cake for craft and stealth. Italians eat a lot, but Germans never miss a meal. As soon as the pizzas came in, he deftly removed one from the stack and motioned for Donnie's brothers to follow him downstairs. I go down five minutes later and there they are, the three of them, savoring a whole pizza bite by bite, with no slobbering relatives hanging over their shoulders. Donnie's sister in law had followed them down as well and she was contentedly munching away on a full slice. Needless to say, I sat down and joined her.
The other interesting sideline of the day was Don's Uncle Mike selling handbags out of the back of his truck. Yes, it's true, as we pulled out of the church parking lot, he was opening the back of his truck to display a huge assortment of imitation designer handbags to a crowd of adoring women. He continued the "trunk sale" at my house and the entire day was punctuated by various women of various ages asking various male relatives (fathers, brothers, husbands, etc.) for money so she could buy a purse in my driveway. Tell me this wouldn't make a great movie!!
Uncle Mike also apparently deals in novelties, so he gave all the children mouth guards that blinked red and blue. One of the little munchkins would pass by and grin up at you and you would be temporarily blinded by the flashing lights. Cute. I'm glad no one at the house was prone to seizures. These were accessorized by giant pixie sticks, full of sugar and colored with red dye number 237. The Gardino kids are going to be crapping fluorescent green for a week!
Anyway, I miss Jenny, but the whole weekend would have given her material for years to come. I really feel we gave her the best possible send off to the great beyond. I'm just sorry she missed out on the pizza. Donnie is blessed to have such a wonderful, caring family, and while his children may be lacking a mother, they will never lack an abundance of love.
