>Holy Cannoli
>As I thumbed through the mail, my heart skipped a beat.
To The Italian Food Lover at 1120 Stillwood Drive. I read the postcard for Abruggio’s Family Restaurant with shaking hands before dropping it and abruptly running for the stairs. I flew down the hall and angrily threw open the attic door.
“How did you do it?!” I shouted, before taking the steps two at a time to the very top of the house.
Turning away from a small black-and-white TV in the attic corner, a greasy-haired middle-aged man in a ripped t-shirt, faded black dress pants and suspenders shrugged and turned his palms up in a halfhearted apology.
“Eh,” he sighed. “Things happen.”
“The deal was, I put you up and I give you all the Italian food you can eat– so long as NO ONE KNOWS YOU LIVE HERE!!”
“Your rigatoni leaves a lot to be desired,” he said, quietly defiant.
“Look,” I pleaded. “Don’t you get it? What will the neighbors say if they find out The Italian Food Lover is living in my attic?!”
“Aye yie yie!” The Italian Food Lover ran his hands through his thick, graying hair. “Abruggio’s is not even in your neighborhood! Who they gonna tell, eh? Now get me some Fettucine Alfredo, woman. I pay you well. I am hungry! Hungry, I tell you!”
I sighed and turned away, stomping down the stairs to make my displeasure known. My brain worked feverishly. I had to find a way to get The Italian Food Lover out of my attic. But how. How?
Suddenly, the phone rang in the kitchen. The fog lifted from my brain and I jumped to pick up the phone. It was Hubs.
“Whatcha doing?” he asked.
“Nothing. I just got the mail and came back inside.”
“Did we get anything good?”
“No, not really. Although we did get a postcard from Abruggio’s addressed to The Italian Food Lover. And I was thinking, what if we had some guy called The Italian Food Lover living in our attic, and…”
I paused as the silence deepened on the other end of the phone. It was an infinitely patient silence. An I-will-wait-for-you-to-get-through-this-story-and-give-a-little-heh-heh-heh-fake-laugh-at-the-end silence. Not the kind of silence I was looking for at all.
“Uh. Anyway. No. Nothing good came.”
“All right, well, I guess I’ll talk to you later. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
>I think we were friends in a former life.My husband has perfected the “patient silence” as well by the way.
>I think they all learn the “Patient Silence” thing in pre-caena…LadyBug
>I think the “Patient Silence Creed” is taught to them in the hospital by the male doctors. My hubby, brother and brother in law do the SAME thing!
>Honey has learned that occasionally using the “Patient Silence” will get him something great, but mostly that if he follows it with “yes, Dear” I will beat him with his remote control.
>I remember that ‘patient silence’ thing as I used to come back to earth and realise where I was and to whom I was talking…Ages ago now…Minerva
>Ha!! Growing up we would always tease my sister that she had a twin that lived up in the attic. For some reason this was very scary to her- so liked to say it a lot 😉 I’m so glad we live in the same mental universe. !!
>LOL. Your humor is so fresh. It would be fun to have you as a sister………or even a wife for that matter, so I could give you the patient silence and then laugh when we hung up.Thanks for your great support. I keep waiting for the other finalist lists to come up to see if you and so many other talented friends get the recognition you deserve.Were up for humor? You should have been a finalist for sure.
>I was nominated for humor, but am not a finalist. My only other nomination is Mommy Blog, so… Of course, I don’t even CARE about the BoBs and never even LOOK at the Finalists page over and over again. ;)Anyway, I’ve been nominated in the Really Fucking Stupid Blog Awards, so that is a great enough honor for me…
>heh
>This is what becomes of you when you are staying home with a small child. The men, they may give you the patient silence…but fellow Moms…we think you’re mighty clever to imagine guys living in your attic. Hmmm…maybe if I had a food lover in my attic, I could put half of each meal away to give to him…thereby losing the weight. A-ha! Now I’m on to something!You should have been a finalist for funny. I was disappointed because a lot of my favorites were nominated and a lot of older bloggers got into the finals. Wasn’t it for newer, less seen blogs? Sigh…
>LOL, that was a great story! I almost fell for it!*By the way, for some reason people use the patient silence on me very often as well. I wonder why.
>When you mentioned the postcard and said you went upstairs in a huff, I thought you were going to say you were mortified that someone had found out YOU were an Italian Food Lover. And I thought that was pretty funny, but then when you started talking about the guy in the attic, I was rolling.
>Congrtulations, Momm! You deserve this so much. You’re finlist in the mama category!
>And boy could I have used a spell check on that one.
>You have an Italian Food Lover in your attic too? Huh! What are the odds?
>CONGRATULATIONS LUCINDA….Yippee!You SO deserve this…Minerva
>I’m doing the happy dance for you BBS 😉 You sooooo deserve this!!Yipee!
>WOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!Way to go on the BOBs Miss Thang! You deserve it!!!!
>I want an Italian Food Lover in my attic. Wait, I don’t have an attic. Damn!
>Thanks everyone. I am way more excited than I care to admit. Keeping my fingers crossed for my friends out there in the Overall category……
>I’m so glad the greedy Italian moved out of my attic. I was sick of sharing my cannolis.
>Stunned, patient silence is preferable to the screaming I sometimes get!
>They found “The Shopper” hidden at my house. I’m not sure how that happened. I thought we were so careful.You rock baby! I knew you would make the cut!
>That was great. My laughter is real 🙂
>That is amazing!!! lol.
>I just got an e-mail from Penn Station Subs, subject line: “Start the New Year off with a Hot Italian” and thought of you! 🙂
>My hubs does more of this:”blah blah blah” (i tell him something incredibly witty and clever)::silence::”wait………….what?”, he says.(then I have to EXPLAIN why it was so witty and clever, ugh.)”Oh. Heh.”, he finishes, leaving me to find someone else to laugh hysterically at my amazing comedic timing.
>They just don’t get it….that was hilarious. Michele sent me back, but i’ll be stoppin’ by daily from now on, me thinks. =)
>hi again, i blogrolled ya cause of the hoo ha story… but this one… this one hits close to home… i think our brains are related… my imagination is like as well… I see that he’s a pretty hot Italian Food Lover too.. does he come out of the attic while hubby is away to make you lunch and snacks… or is he the snack? hahahahaha