Voiceover: Do These Pants Make Me Look Naked?

Please send help.

Image by author, created with AI.

It takes talent to end up in the back of a police car by day three of a 90-day journey through Italy. But if you’re not “going big,” are you even living?

As is the case with many good stories, a bottle of wine was involved. Some folks think that sounds like a lot for one person. But to this veteran bartender pulling an Eat, Pray, Love after an apocalyptic break-up, a bottle of wine was breakfast.

Wine filled me with a detached daring that led me to proclaim, “Nothing matters!” and fly to a foreign country without a plan, a map or a working phone. To underscore my lack of fucks, I smuggled a quarter ounce of weed into my luggage. I had been wandering Rome in a haze since arriving, surviving off gelato and getting impossibly lost, which was a welcome distraction from feeling. 

On the third evening, I wandered into an osteria and ordered—you guessed it—a bottle of wine. Then, I promptly judged myself and added cod to the ticket, which arrived at the table with its head on. I decided I was much too fragile to dissect my dinner, so I poked at it impassively for a few minutes before pushing it aside. The truth was, food had lost its allure the same morning my vibrant life had become a faded no-color. Who could eat when their heart felt like roadkill?

It was wine that brought Frank and me together, in fact. From the moment he answered the roommate-wanted ad, our friendship was a fuzzy montage of days and nights spent verbally sparring over glasses of Sauvignon Blanc. It was a jammy Malbec that led us to tumble into bed together some months later, which, if you’re looking for a way to “go big” in the poor life choices department, is an excellent move.

Wine makes you delusional in many ways, not least of which is believing you are sashaying gracefully back to Termini Station when, in fact, you are a hot mess. You might even believe that because you managed to find the bus destined for the convent putting you up, you are slaying.

*Cue fireworks*

The bus was dark and warm except for where my forehead pressed against the window. Pajamas were imminent, and my body melted into the seat in anticipation of climbing into them. I felt pixelated, made of bees, and the bees turned off the part of my brain that knew the key to survival was paying attention. Instead, I popped in my earbuds and considered how “big” I’d gone in the breakup department.

Some people have uneventful and, dare I say, even amicable breakups. Others get dumped the morning of their 30th birthday while dressing for a wedding they’re supposed to attend with their (now) ex. Some breakups are due to bland reasons like “The timing isn’t right” or “It’s not you; it’s me.” Others are because the boyfriend falls for the married best friend, has an affair and gets caught via some nefarious snooping. Friends and family won’t actually say that you’re just as bad as they are for the nefarious snooping part, but you will feel their judgment. I decided someone should award a prize to people who manage to fail so spectacularly at love.

And that prize should be wine.

All at once, I came to and realized I had no idea where I was. I just knew I was no longer in the city. Instead, the bus appeared to be heading into a vast black void. There were no houses here, no streetlights, but there was, inexplicably, a lone bus stop. So, I decided it made sense to get off there.

The thing about missing your stop in the city is that retracing your steps is a fairly straightforward process, even if you are in your No Fucks Given Era and traveling without navigational devices of any kind. The thing about getting to the void before you’ve realized you’ve missed your stop is that the world will stop making sense, and you’ll be deposited on the side of a freeway.

I’d never seen a freeway with a bus stop, so I was puzzling over this as the bus pulled away, leaving me teetering drunkenly on the narrow shoulder. Recognition dawned slowly, filtering into my mind like molasses before congealing into a warning.

GTF out of here!

I looked to my left and saw Vespas shrieking toward me like errant bullets, painting the turnpike with comets of light. Each was driven as if destroying tourists awarded them points in some delightful game. This, I would discover, is how all Italians drive, so my advice is to stay off the freeways at all costs. But, should you happen to find yourself drunkenly standing on one, the solution is to leap over the guardrail. 

In my mind, I ballet leaped. In reality, my body went for it and thought the better of it at the same time, which led to me sliding awkwardly over the metal divider, scraping my lady bits and smashing to the ground on the opposite side. The maneuver earned me a burning welt across my rear, which, as I got to my feet shakily, became illuminated in the headlights of the drivers who were whizzing by with maniacal glee. By some marvel of physics, in those short, graceless seconds, the seat of my pants had completely disintegrated.

I was safe on the far side of the guardrail, though, so I took that as a win, if only to keep from crying that my entire ass was now exposed. I had no jacket to cover up with and no shoulder bag to wear awkwardly so my least favorite body part wouldn’t be prominently on display. It was fortunate, I guess, that all I could see in any direction was darkness and freeway. But it was unfortunate that there wasn’t a walking path back toward the city. And if I wanted to catch the bus going the opposite direction, I’d have to Frogger my way across eight lanes of traffic. 

So, I did the only reasonable thing I could and plunged into the darkness. Flashlights weren’t yet a standard phone feature, and the only other illumination came from the headlights growing distant behind me, so I flailed, wild and blind, through the strange wilderness. I encountered thorn-covered brambles and treacherous ditches. I fell down a lot. I cursed my misfortune by screaming at the sky like they do in the movies.

After approximately three hours of army crawling through what I was sure was poison ivy and narrowly escaping animal attacks that could have been imagined, I spotted a lone gas station. It looked out of place in the outback, but the lights were on, and that seemed promising. A huge barbed wire fence stood between it and me—because that’s how you “go big” in the Murphy’s Law department. Undeterred, I heaved myself over it like a manatee. 

Thankfully numb to the lacerations I’d just sustained, I emerged from the darkness with all the drama of the Swamp Thing, covered in foxtails and mud and hiccupping pathetically. I stood like a human tumbleweed before the perplexed station attendant, vigorously blaspheming the Italian language in an effort to get him to call me a taxi. 

Then, I waited for approximately one year. It was unbearably cold with a fully exposed tuchus, so to distract myself from freezing to death, I learned how to thank the nice man, via translation book, for looking after me. This was because I was under the impression he had called me a taxi. So 100 days later, when the cops arrived, I tried very hard to find "You suck" in the book. It wasn’t there.

Neither officer spoke a word of English, which felt appropriate for how things were going. I suppressed the urge to giggle hysterically, not wanting to look as unhinged as I felt. The guys began a game of charades, which would have been a lot more fun if we’d had some wine.

Eventually, I deduced that they wanted to see my documentation, but it was nowhere to be found. Both of my credit cards and all of my cash were also gone. Perhaps while I’d stood troubling over my abrupt nudity, I’d been pickpocketed by a silver-fingered paisano as he sped by on a Vespa. I wondered how many points they got for that. 

My pants were FUBAR, and I was a dirty, bloody mess, which made it impossible to convince the two officers that I had not been beaten or mugged. I flipped uselessly through my book, looking for how to say, No, sirs, I have not been raped, but am, in fact, just a drunken fool lost in the Roman jungle, who coincidentally misplaced all proper identification. 

I mostly just repeated the word “perso”—or lost—over and over, to which the men responded with the English word "attacked” each and every time. This must be a game, also. Fifty points for making the foreign girl cry. 

They did say another word—“boyfriend”—whose failure to present himself was an impossible puzzle to them. They were determined not to believe I was traveling alone. Feeling a bit like Alice in Wonderland, I attempted an epic charades performance conveying that I had just arrived in Italy—by myself—and would be here for three months. They didn’t get it. I doubt it was due to my acting, which was impressive. I rather think it was sheer refusal to believe anyone would send a half-naked American girl with no sense of direction and a drinking problem to a foreign country for three months alone. 

A brilliant idea occurred to me then, and I gave the carabinieri the number for the restaurant I had dined in, thinking perhaps we could at least solve the mystery of where my credit cards had gone. An English-speaking waitress answered (things were looking up!), and the officers handed me the phone so I could ask her to act as a translator. Perhaps she had PTSD from being a translator in the past, or maybe a drunk American girl had run over her dog, but in any case, she hated me instantly. She furiously demanded to know whether I had been robbed, which she communicated to the officers in clipped Italian before slamming down the phone.  

By now, I was exhausted to the point of complete surrender. I allowed myself to be poured into the back of the police car, which should have been alarming, but it was warm, so it felt like an improvement. To my immense relief, we soon pulled up outside the Order of Santa Brigida. 

The men let me out, and I smiled woozily, eager to put the evening behind me. I could deal with the fallout of having no money or ID after a nice long sleep. Thanks for the ride, gents; it’s been a gas. I turned away from them, strategically plotting my re-entry so I wouldn’t draw attention to the fact that I was coming in after curfew. That’s when one of the men cleared his throat.

I turned back slowly. “Sì?” I sighed.

More charades. They wanted to see my passport, which, in a singular moment of good judgment, I had left in my room. I thought about explaining that members of the opposite sex were forbidden, so drunkenly bringing two guys in uniform up to my bedroom while wearing assless chaps was a really bad idea. But how do you say that in charades?

With great reluctance, I opened the gate and led them up the pitch-black stairwell, trying to express the necessity of absolute silence. They took my shushing as a hilarious suggestion and shushed me back loudly, ensuring we were neither stealthy nor quiet. Because I was so stinking tired, so close to bed and it appeared I wasn’t in trouble, I let the unhinged giggles come. 

And the most amazing thing happened.

The guys began laughing, too, their mirth joining with mine and picking up speed like a runaway train. We were enjoying ourselves—and each other—despite not even speaking the same language. One of the officers shoulder-checked me, but gently, like an older brother would do, and I momentarily forgot being mortified, defeated and heartbroken. 

When I responded to the shove by throwing “girl” punches, I wasn’t pretending to tussle with an officer of the law or even a stranger; I was sharing a hilarious moment with a fellow messy human. I was in for some hard days ahead without credit cards and ID, but I felt better for the first time in ages.

Back in my room, seeking confirmation I wasn’t in trouble, I held my wrists out to the men like a question. Are you going to arrest me? More laughter. The one closest to me pointed to his handcuffs and then to the headboard and howled in amusement. The other gestured toward a pair of jeans air-drying on the bathroom door, and pantomimed covering my ass. We cackled until the tears came.

Truth is stranger than fiction, especially when you live your life going big. But I guess sometimes it takes absurd circumstances and bare-assed vulnerability to find your way back to connection. That night, I was gifted a moment I could cling to amidst the chaos of my life. A snapshot of joy that served as the first step in putting back together the pieces of my heart, of finding my way back to me.

The girl who can’t help but go big.

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Are you also a fan of wine? Then make this sangria immediately. No judgment if you use the real thing; just maybe don’t drink the whole bottle. 🥴