Stupid (8) 4th Lesson: The Meaning of Mario (Note: this Lesson cannot be translated in English. It has too much to do with myself, my hometown, and the dumbest of all things, local soccer. It evolves, fundamentally, around the concept that soccer is the most stupid thing mankind invented, and such is the individual that lives for it. So, either you are evolved and do not care about soccer, therefore you can be spared to read, or you are a soccer fan, therefore you are too dumb to understand it.) "A vent'anni è tutto ancora intero
A vent'anni è tutto chi lo sa
A vent'anni si è stupidi davvero
Quante balle si ha in testa a quell'età"
(Francesco Guccini, "Eskimo") 
With the approach of the Christmas show at all allotted the unseemly task of going in search of gifts required. It 's the compeanno of God, after a pity that the gifts never touch the celebrated, in this case, but it is another matter. In fact, this ritual is hateful fate touched me too.
few days ago I was in a cathedral (ie in one of the usual modern shopping malls where you can find everything you need and not at all), with Mario that whistled over my shoulder for being forced to go with me. Armed with a sufficient amount of patience, I got in one of the big shops that plague these places, when I pass in front of a familiar face.
Now, Mario has many flaws, and would not be what it is if it were not so, but he has an innate instinct to recognize approaching an idiot. It 's like a radar. When I felt stiff, blow and swell like a cat at the sight of a tub of salt water, I had to adjust and turn on his heel, pointing to the exit and decided to close it there. But time passes, and because my neurons have long been taken to commit suicide en masse like lemmings, I do not have the quickness and reaction time than a couple of decades ago. Too bad for me.
So crossing the look of the guy, the square, he does not recognize me (and this, in retrospect, was a sign that would suggest to give up, but I'm so, the slave of that soft human side led social incontinence, ie I can not resist, I swear I'm trying to quit, the Grannies curse and insult the sisters, but they are not still came out definitively from the tunnel). I stare at the guy. "You are Andrea (Pinco), I'm Andrea (ball)," I tell him without holding back. Alas, we recognize ourselves.
This is a fellow high school, then we speak of roughly twenty years ago. Never seen again. I remember in high school, the pitch of cement, which could certainly Menara ball like few others, with blue eyes and curly blond rebel who did the crazy classmates. Maybe somewhere over the years we were also classmates. However you get along, we played soccer together, and we fuckin 'good-natured spirit of the tribe according to different likes football (because under 18 is allowed to practice it, watch it and talk about it, and is even allowed to divide in two sub-branches of evolution, pro and pro-Toro-Juve, who then reached the age of reason to deviate the human being itself, or lean inexorably toward the dry branch of 'homo
tifosus ).
I also remember at that balenante when we recognize that he was a huge del Toro, but there and then do not blame him: we were young and innocent. Of course, to be fanatical football is in itself a grave offense, and also be del Toro is a further aggravating - not to say sympathy / antipathy personal, but based on an accurate statistics compiled by myself from the newsagent, bar and random in various contexts in which this sub-merged and sports the worst human evolution has produced; take coffee next to three fans del Toro who blather on Monday morning has the same effect that would drink a cup of 'stagnant water sitting in the middle of the sewers of Calcutta. They are annoying like flies. At least those of Juventus are usually quiet and do not infect me with their smart advice from coaches on Sunday of the cock.
But all this does not give weight. Twenty years have passed. We grew up. We got married. We have kids. We, or at least we should have, discovered the important things in life. I am pleased even meet again.
First thing he tells me, again, two decades that even if we do not see here and I heard from him bounce (for example, I know that he is married and has children, I know where he works, Turin is a small city ): "How are you ',' I'm fine," these twenty seconds of the usual platitudes, however, inevitable.
should follow: what do you do in life, have kids, how old they are, all right, what have you done, references to other former classmates or friends in common, have had no news of Tom Dick or ... seems normal. And yet.
Second thing I said - and less than two minutes have passed since I reviewed after two decades: "You're always Juve?.
Rest stunned for a moment, Mario blows like a saber-toothed tiger, my neurons perform a triple jump of the lemmings with the pike, and I have the readiness to give my usual answer to this question and other variants of the existential question stupidest prehistoric times: "What team are you?". My answer is usually "over 18 years I have discovered that continue to give importance to football, as well as children, it's definitely an idiot" [Tim]. In general discontent and to silence the other person, with my good peace and inner satisfaction.
In essence, all this because I have practiced as a sport by decerebration exit from puberty, and later was unfortunately also labor for me, I know not how I want. And between the two factions towns, ostensibly to good taste and quality of mental and intellectual members of the different (and partly due to family inheritance), I like most of the Juventus side. My position is that I do not go to the stadium, I do not watch a game that is a tv, if "my" team wins I'm happy, I sincerely strabatto if he loses, and I do not care the least what the teams are others, will be a bit 'their dicks.
This time, as mentioned, outcome, and lost in the old days at least as taken aback, I stammer something like, "... Well, oh, more or less, yes. " He, I believed that this individual has evolved beyond the larval stage and the maturity of the next 40 years like me, mocking smiles and whispers: "Auf Wiedersehen." Examine for a moment, shocked the abstruse concept. Why say hello to me in German? Mario growled and sank his claws into my shoulder. I see the guy who is clearly having an erection, probably an earth, believed to have been so brilliant that his jokes. Then plug in: Juventus, the day before, he lost a match against Bayern Monaco, undeniably German team.
The guy leaves her prey to hormones (also a bit 'of the bib, could you give pats on the back, rather little is missing hugs and decides to lemon a little' alone). I stand there, dazed. And think.
Initially, the fact that the Taurus (which is also in series B and not exactly in the Champions League) has just lost his turn with the Crotone (or Gallipoli or the Sassuolo, or another league team zeta ), then you have to be fairly stupid, even more than the average of your peers - usually a gazelle a bit 'lame and half-gear does not take the piss out of the lion, if it meets one has the decency to turn off without being note. Then finally beginning to recover and avoid falling into the spiral of football, flapped his wings and mental book me again where the air is (mentally) fresh.
And I think what must have been sad life of a person who chews bitter twenty years, which infuses all his poor sense of self-belief in a football (watch the word "faith" that if we are already in the border of impropriety and blasphemy !!!), which has never given a single, small, miserable satisfaction ... to the point to resist the abyss of depression and unable to enjoy their joys, benefits from the misfortunes of others, that is, in all fields of human knowable a backward step on the scale evolution. I think that fits my lemming, but your brain should not even have disappeared without leaving a note of farewell, a long time ago.
Twenty years I do not see,
Twenty . And the second thing that comes to mind is to take the piss
not because your team won, but because I lost ... or rather, what
you think is mine, because I feel that I have sat on the eighteenth step of life and remained there beside you, dazed by your own idols of cardboard, drowned in my drool as you in your envy, to squeeze the gonads in front of a leather ball ...
...
but fuck, idiot. And I tell you with my heart full of Christmas spirit. Not only do I have confirmed that the fanatics of football as you are and will remain a product of my species (and among them those of faith are truly grenade on average more than people of other shit), but I've also mentioned that the old bitch without fail every Monday meeting in newsagents, to yelling with his nasal voice of the cock "Our coach," "Boys do not have a good game," "At least Juve lost" (proving that since the world and world all assholes look alike, nda). "Our faith grenade" and a bunch of other crap that disturb me while I buy or try the new Courier issue of Wired. But for this I thank you. For four years the stand, every Monday. Do not take it anymore. Next week I will send you fuck her as well.
Sorry, there is a real lesson in our manual here. If you do this: there is a limit to what one can prove fools. But if you exceed it, this lesson is also useless. So, to quote Stephen King, "rooting, pork, or crack." Do not much care.
And Merry Christmas.
The value of money is a perception. Do you see something you like and buy it, often judging the affordable price even if you have not done a comparison. 
