Angry notary public 22/06/09

Yesterday we went to the Notaio (notary) for the collaboratrice contract. I asked what it meant and he said collaboratrice meant I worked with my husband; I specifically had asked what the legal expectations or fiscal responsibilities were to avoid such a banal explanation. ‘Signora, la vedo poco convinta, you don’t have to sign it if you aren’t sure,’ he said, in a fatigued voice; ‘you guys made the appointment with me, these question are for the commercialista’ … Of course, our accountant (commercialista) just calls mio marito, who doesn’t question anything and hates that I have to check everything. Well, why shouldn’t I? Why is that such a problem? To placate the notary he said, ‘My wife is so distrustful of everything Sicilian, you know, she is Irish and thinks everything works better over there.’ ‘Ah well, you are in Sicily now, here things work a little bit differently,’ said the notaio, handing us the contract.

Mio marito just signed it straight away, while I read it. ‘Do you read in Italian?’ the notary asked. Of course I do, in fact I spotted a mistake straight away: it said I was an Italian citizen, which of course I am not and hopefully never will be since it doesn’t appear to have many advantages. While I signed the new one the smooth notaio with his swept back hair and open collar raised his voice, ‘Ah allora non ci siamo!’ (‘No, that’s not right!’) I didn’t know if he was referring to the citizenship or my signature, but it soon became clear he wanted all my names as on my passport, and not just my first initial and surname.(‘Maybe in Ireland you can sign like that but not in Italy and you are in Italy now!’ (if you don’t mind), ‘and not in bold mind,’ he shouted, though I hadn’t written it in bold and pointed this out to him. He was getting all volcanic as these people do, no doubt he felt his authority was being challenged.



Lola