It Gives Me Fever

Just thinking about some stereotypical Italian things is enough to make some of us woozy.  A handsome, well-dressed man zipping by on a Vespa, an extra large piece of tiramisu, a moonlit walk on a canal in Venice or a pair of handmade, shiny blue shoes might make even a non-sentimental American's temperature rise.  But can these quotidian events really be the cause of so many Italian fevers?

In the two years that I've been living in Italy a week has seldom passed that I haven't heard about someone's fever.  Friends can't have dinner because of fevers.  Students can't come to lessons because of fevers.  Walks on trails, after-dinner coffees and ice cream dates have all been cancelled due to fever.  In addition, exact temperatures are reported, including hours and increments. What people don't know is that degrees mean nothing to me.  If I still haven't learned how to quickly translate the temperature of a beautiful day from celcius to fahrenheit, you can bet I'm not going to waste time translating one's body temp.  Until today, that is.  Most research seems to agree that a normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees fahrenheit or 37 degrees celcius, "give or take a degree depending on individual differences."  And experience indicates that a normal cancellation body temperature (i.e. fever) in Italy is anything above 37.5 (which if you agree with the "give or take a degree" might actually be normal).

Strangely, when someone cancels plans with me because of a fever I spend a lot more time infuriated by this fever phenomenon than sulking about my solitude.  I don't think about lost wages or missed outings.  Instead, I contemplate why Italians are so concerned about their temperatures.  A while back I started wondering if it was just me.  Was I really the only one that didn't have a thermometer in the house when I grew up?  Was it only my mom who felt my face with the back of her hand to tell me if I got to go to school or not?  But then I remembered that my neighbor's mom used to gently put her cheek on Lisa Jean's forehead to see if she had a fever. Albeit a cheek instead of the back of a hand, it wasn't a thermometer.

I needed some reassurance.  It's hard to go on my "you Italians and your temperatures are crazy" spiel without something good to back it up.  So I called an American friend and asked her how many times she'd checked her temperature in the past year.  She replied, "Do you mean in the past twenty years?  None."  My Italian friends are incredulous.

Last week I asked a student about her long weekend in Rome.  She said that they'd had to come home early because she'd had a fever.  I asked how she knew she'd had a fever and quickly added, "Please don't tell me you took a thermometer to Rome for the weekend."  She just smiled.

I'm sure that if I had to cut a weekend short I'd simply say that I came home early because I was sick.  But how would I know without a thermometer?  Easy.  I wouldn't feel good and I'd want to stay in the hotel room.  And choosing a hotel room instead of the "piazze e pallazzi" of Rome would be a pretty good indication that I was sick even if I didn't know my temperature.  If I'm sick, I'm sick.  I lie around a couple of days until I start to feel better.  Then I try to eat some chicken noodle soup and crackers with grape jelly.  If I feel okay, I probably don't have the fever anymore and I can get on with my life.  If I'm not myself for four or five days maybe (just maybe) I go to the doctor. Then he checks my temperature and confirms that I'm sick.  I go back to bed and wait until I get the urge for the chicken noodle soup.  And then maybe (just maybe) it will all happen again in another 5 years or so.

I don't think I'll ever get to the bottom of this Italian fever frenzy.  (Or any of their other ailments.  See blog, Living with a Bunch of Old Wives).  I'm still trying to learn that I don't really have to.  As with most of these cultural differences that are beginning to drive me mad, I have to accept that that's just the way it is here.

I asked a friend what he thought about his culture's overuse of the thermometer.  He said, "It's interesting that you Americans are still alive even though you never check your temperatures.  On the other hand, it doesn't seem to have harmed us for checking."  What a calm and uncritical response.  Will the day ever come that I can say, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" even on issues that make my blood boil?  Which in turn, I know, may cause a fever.