Tick, tick, tick

When I was in Italy this summer, something odd happened. In fact, it began even before I arrived in the country, as though the destination itself were enough to trigger it.

My flight from London to Rome was delayed by more than an hour, so we were stuck waiting in the plane that entire time. A few rows up was an Italian family with a toddler. He was not dealing well with being restrained to the airline seat and kept trying to escape his mother's grip so he could run up and down the aisle.

When he realized that he wasn't able to run freely, he started crying wailing screaming screeching at the top of his lungs. And not just any screeching. He sounded like a wild animal being murdered dismembered disemboweled and then finally dying only to be reincarnated as another wild animal being attacked and murdered by an even more vicious creature. A T-Rex maybe.

And there were many, many reincarnations, because did I mention that this went on for more than an hour? In a claustrophobic plane? With no way out?

And the thing was...

I thought it was cute.

I know. There's something wrong with me. This should have been the most annoying situation on the planet, particularly with that high-pitched, unrelenting screech of his, but this kid, he was oh so cute. He had curly brown hair and olive skin and big brown eyes and Italian features and he was just the cutest widdle kiddie you'd ever see. Sure, I pitied his parents because he was obviously a demanding, difficult, tantrum-throwing little brat, but he was just...so...cute.

I vowed to get that checked out when I got home, because something was seriously wrong with me.

The thing was, it kept happening. Every time I saw a little Italian kid, which was a lot, I burst into a big smile, got all gushy, said "carina", the Italian word for cute, and felt my uterus twitch as if it were saying, "Me too!" I was one big walking hormonal womb by the end of my stay. If anyone had pissed me off, I could have swatted them away with one of my fallopian tubes or tossed some of my eggs at them, that's how bad it was.

My three hot cousins and I were at a lovely Italian restaurant McDonald's when we had the following conversation:

Savia: I think little Italian girls are the cutest ever. I love their features and the way they look. They are just perfect. I want one!
Ella: If you have a baby with Superstar, your children will not look like that.
Savia: That's okay. I'll just find one here.

[Confused pause as they try to figure out what she means.]

Nia: [exclaiming] Oh! You mean that you will find a father in Italy!

[Savia realizes that they think she's going to fuck random Italian guys to get knocked up so she can bring an Italian baby back to Canada. Fortunately for her, she finds most Italian men repulsive, so there was no chance of her coming home with anything other than shoes, four pair to be exact.]

Savia: No! I'll just find a cute little Italian girl and take her home with me...in my purse. I have a big purse. It will be fine.
Mona: Ooooh...We think that if you do that, you will go to prison.
Savia: Yes, but you live right by the prison, so you could visit me.
Ella: I will visit you every day and I will bring you an orange.
Savia: But I like peaches better.
Ella: No, peaches are too expensive. You only get an orange!

I might have actually done it, if there weren't such a lack of peaches in the Italian prison system. You've got to weigh the pros and cons before you stuff random toddlers in your purse, after all. That, and my purse really wasn't that big.

The thing is, once I got back to Canada, I was okay. I went back to seeing kids as annoying (except for Marlena's perfect little baby, of course) and kissing my birth control pills before I go to bed every night. It appears Italian children are the only ones who can trigger my ticking biological clock...for now.

But the scary question is...is this Italian toddler obsession an anomaly or just the thin edge of the wedge? What's next? Ukrainian babies? Hungarian kids? Lithuanian tots? Will I just go through every nationality before there are none left and I have no choice but to pop one out myself?

I'm scared. Hold me.