Can I kiss you?

I thought the season of asking for kisses in Italy had passed, but apparently it hasn't.  During the holidays the question is disguised, making it a bit easier to get away with.   

The first time I heard, "Posso darti auguri?" (can I give you my best wishes?)  I was confused.  It was in the beginning of December when I was asked by a friend of a friend and I said, "Why couldn't you?"  It seemed strange that he thought he needed permission to say Merry Christmas.  The next thing I knew he was getting up from his desk and coming towards me.  Then he said "Auguri" and gave me the double kiss (which I've finally learned starts on the left, referring to an earlier post, A Kiss is Not Just a Kiss).  And that was that.  I'd learned what "Posso darti auguri?" meant.  It's not asking for permission to give best wishes.  It's asking for permission to give kisses.   From then on I was prepared for the holiday season. 

But what I've never been prepared for is off-season. (As in, not during the holidays and not masked with, "Can I give you auguri?")  In off-season, I can count on two hands the number of times I've been asked for a kiss by a stranger.  I know the 'count on hands' expression is usually used to indicate how seldom something happens.  And we usually only refer to one hand.  As in, "I can count on one hand how many times you've offered to wash the dishes."  But in this case, I'm astounded that the number of times I've been asked to be given a kiss by a stranger is actually high enough to count on TWO hands.   

Why would a person that I don't know think I'd want a kiss from them and why would they want to kiss me?  In all of my travels over the past twenty years, which I think it's safe to say covers a lot of territory,  the only place I've been asked for a kiss by a complete stranger is in Italy.  What makes a chubby, more-than-middle-aged man in the park think that after interrupting my attempt at a little acquarello I would to want to kiss him?

And why would an encroaching-on-elderly man on the running path that has taken a walk every day since his open-heart surgery think he could kiss me?  I'd actually talked to him long enough the previous day (45 seconds) to hear about the surgery.  I suppose that justifies his asking for the sweaty kiss the next day.  We were already good friends.  Or maybe he had to reset his pacemaker and he thought a kiss would do the trick.

Then there was the attempt at dusk last week on my way home from a run in the rain. I was on the regular road instead of the trail and I saw a man checking his mailbox.  Actually, I was kind of surprised to see such an almost-ancient man out in the rain.  As I was passing, he asked if I was afraid to be out in the dark.  I stopped and said, "No, should I be?"  I thought there might be something about the neighborhood that I still had to learn.  But the only thing I learned is that there's yet another hopeful heartbreaker living down the street.  It went like this. 

Instead of responding to my "No, should I be?" he simply said, "You have such a pretty face.  Can I give you a kiss?"  And even though he was probably 85-years old, I gave him a gentle shove on his shoulder  (which luckily didn't make him topple) and sweetly said, "Are you out of your mind?" which I suppose at his age he actually could have been. 

I won't continue with the examples.  That's pretty much how it goes.  And don't forget, there are enough of these love affairs to count on two hands.  I've decided that the next time it happens instead of just accepting the fact that I'm in Italy and saying, "That's aMORe!" I'm going to pretend I'm in Canada and say, "That's ENOUGH, eh?"




A kiss makes the heart young again and wipes out all the years.  --Rupert Brooke
Ok.  That explains everything.