Don't Lose................Hope.

Two weeks has passed since the emotional day that I got and lost my Italian driver's license.  Reporting it immediately to the police was easy because at that time I wasn't afraid of public places.  It was three days before the Coronavirus outbreak. The police told me to let a few days pass to see if it turned up.  And if it didn't, I had to go back to the driving school to request a new one.  At first I was dreading that trip due to embarrassment.  But a few days after the loss of the license and the arrival of the Coronavirus, instead of the dread being an issue of embarrassment it had become an issue of anxiety (which I suppose should also be embarrassing). 

Suddenly my new license didn't seem all that important. The lobby of the driving school is small and usually filled with students.  You really can't get out of the way and wait your turn six feet from the receptionist. I had the piece of paper from the police and I thought that for the time being it would be sufficient. How long it would really be sufficient was uncertain. We're in Italy, the land where little things often turn into big things overnight.

I spent the first week looking in ditches, checking my mailbox and expecting to see a huge bus pull in my tiny driveway to deliver my license. In my downtime I was planning what seemed the inevitable trip.  I went out of my way to pass the driving school at various times throughout the day recording high and low traffic periods (just kidding, but it had entered my mind).

I spent the second week the same as the first.  But, on the fourteenth day of the missing license and the eleventh day of the Coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy, I received good news from the bus company.  They had found my license. The leather case that I'd bought at G.H. Bass & Co. in Michigan City, Indiana was waiting to be picked up an hour away in Treviso, Italy, a new city on the Coronavirus map.

I found the courage to google the situation in Treviso before I made my move.  One headline included the word focolaio which I had to look up.  Here are a few synonyms:   focus, locus, site, hotbed, breeding ground. That's exactly why I shouldn't be googling.  A trip to the driving school to order a new license didn't seem like such a bad option.

Fortunately it was a nice day for a convertible ride and I convinced myself that there was no time like the present.  The bus station was empty. There was one guy in the lobby and one ticket seller seated safely behind his thick glass window. The station door was propped open, a new courtesy in these parts to curtail the spread of the virus. Fortunately I had my right hand man for the trip.  He passed through the door and went to the window.  I didn't pass through the door.  I stayed outside on the sidewalk long enough to wave at the ticket seller to prove my identity and then ran back to the car. 

The leather case made the trip home in a plastic bag.  There was no peeking at my driver's license photo that had only been in my possession for less than 30 minutes two weeks ago.  It was in the leather case in the plastic bag in the trunk.  I wanted to celebrate, but going out for pizza and gelato wasn't an option.  (If I'm your source of information for the Coronavirus in Italy, I don't want to mislead you.  Most places are open. But someone that's afraid to touch a plastic bag just because it was in a bus station for 30 seconds can probably live without pizza and gelato for a bit.)

I'm happy to say that my slogan for the Italian bus company still holds true.  Meglio tardi che mai, better late than never.