Rules, rules, rules

I was striding along, just minding my own business. I noticed the look. I didn't pay attention. I was pulling open the gate of the dog park when the stage whisper winged over the too high grasses and weeds. "Look at her, she's wearing trainers to the park." I was wearing cheap grey and white trainers. I side glanced back to catch a glimpse at my critic. I saw a middle-aged woman with small white dog and husband (?), she was staring at my feet. She then looked away, just as pointedly. What was I supposed to wear on my feet in the park?No doubt I had transgressed a sartorial rule, whether a nationally known one like 'no socks with sandals', or a self-invented one, like 'no shorts over forty', I had no idea. 

Come to think of it, it was in the same park I'd overheard an Italian woman loudly comment to another, "you can see you're a foreigner, you're wearing a T-shirt." It was on a warm morning in April. Like for so many things there are the right seasons for clothes, hence all the tut-tutting at German and other northern tourists and their shorts and sandals as early as February and as late as November. Or the frowns of disapproval upon seeing women go bare-legged under their shorts and skirts as early as May. Shock! It highlights just how uneasy-going and unrelaxed Italians can be. 

A lot of Italian life is stifled by rules. And more rules. And even more rules. Some are self-invented. Some are branded 'it's the done thing,'  the table manners guide 'il 
galateo' is a serious tome for those inclined to follow it. I've even had parts of it quoted to me by teenagers who have had it rubbed into them by their parents. 
Non fare la scarpetta, using a piece of bread to mop up the sauce is a rule destined and begging to be broken. Just don't do it in the wrong place. 

Some rules date to less modern times, but are still applied even if selectively. Hence, for a brief while all animals 'except seeing eye dogs' were banned from the lift on my side of the building. The rule dated from the fifties, had never been observed or even mentioned (I live on the 4th floor with a dog so would have noticed) but had been brought into application following a spat between two flat owners. The spat had nothing to do with dogs, by the way, but was about a drop of water leaking onto a balcony. Thus to inconvenience the leaker, owner of 2 dogs, the rule was resurrected. And  just as quickly died. As was pointed out banning all animals effectively meant no one could use the lift. I pictured the lone guide dog, paws on the dirty linoleum floor, reflected in the grubby mirror, stuck waiting on the ground floor to go up all alone and unaided as the neon light above it flickered on and off, in the way they do in horror movies.

It must be said condominium blocks are palaces to insane, inane rules. Maybe other countries are like this? A friend discovered by transgressing that in her block no one could hang their sheets to dry over the edge of the balcony but in the block opposite, part of the same complex but under different management, the tenants could. 

I went online to find out more about the condominium rule book: a hefty volume which bore nothing in common with the rather obvious and anodine rules I had been shown when I signed my rental contract. 

Condominium rules, it seems, are established by law and at condominium assembly meetings. In large condominium complexes the different blocks may be managed by different administrators leading to different state of law for all. It's a schizophrenic system which ignores the concept of fairness or logic. 

In the case of disputes, numerous in such a litigious country as Italy, the Justice of the Peace will make the final ruling. One wonders how he will decide should the current spat brewing in my building, that is people throwing liquids such as oil (how has this been established?) off the high floors as well as nut casings onto lower floor awnings, escalates.

Italy has so many rules that no one knows them all. Rule books get bigger and bigger as more are created. Creativity is alive and well in Italy today in the form of a rule book. Some rules make sense and some are pointless - much like the bureaucracy. In some cases they may not even be coherent.

Some to be fair, are not just in Italy, after all a lot of countries have their rules and 'good manners' guidebooks and lists.  Don't swim after lunch was one that was oft repeated in my youth. The modern modified version being: don't swim after lunch unless you go immediately after. So the moment that last bit of sand covered pasta has gone down rush into the sea before the digestion process starts. You'll be safe (or so you think).

As I walk down the aisles of my local supermarket another place where rules proliferate like mushrooms out of muddy soil in an autumn forest, on a loop comes the message: "wear the mono-use gloves (guanti mono-uso) provided when handling fresh produce, it is severely forbidden (tautology) to take photos in the shop, you may not use personal bags or trolleys to shop…."  I live dangerously and pick an onion with ungloved bare hands. I wonder, what happens now? Am I going to be arrested?