Jonathan and I blew into Firenze today -- hoping for one last visit before the summer tourist season roils in. That horse, however, turned out to be already out of the bag. We threaded our way carefully through crowds and I felt sorry for the people who only get to see lovely, stony, serene Firenze all filled up this way. I began to feel guilty, even, that we were there. We, after all, were just parts of their crowds -- they who perhaps only had Firenze this one time in their lives. 

So we visited a few of our best friends in the Uffizi (via the joy of our annual pass that means we don't pay and we don't wait in line -- which now feels like cheating somehow. Although one of the big selling points of the pass is that you don't have to stand in line, but just go right in whenever you want, there has never before actually been a line to cut to the head of -- until today.) 

Then we went over to Zecchi, the lovely art supply store on a tiny side street near the Duomo. After drooling over the jars of powdered pigments for all these months, I finally decided to take the plunge and buy some.

The staff at Zecchi are very kind and very helpful and patient, explaining things to me and helping me choose colors. They even took the time to specially make me a little jar of cadmium yellow because there were only big ones in stock. They let me try all the brushes to see which ones I liked best. Everyone so jovial.

But there was a woman in there, who started shouting at one of the other salesmen, the head clerk, I think. She was being just awful to him -- rude and demeaning and preemptory -- because she couldn't get the wifi to work on her phone. He was trying to tell her how to connect to the store wifi and she wouldn't even let him talk -- she kept interrupting him, wouldn't listen to what he was trying to tell her, but was just berating him because she couldn't check her email in the store to find her supply list of the things she needed to buy for an art course she was taking for a week.

It was horrible. Jonathan and I were in an agony of mortification, because of course she was speaking English and, although it was hard to tell because of her anger, she sounded American to me. I was paralyzed with embarrassment for my whole native country.

She stormed out and in the silence that followed her exit, Jonathan and I just stood there, feeling so much shame. I apologized in my best (very broken) Italian to the men working there for all Americans. They were, of course, lovely. "There is no problem with Americans," the head clerk said to us. "There is just a problem with her." We all commiserated together. Then we turned our attentions to more pleasant topics -- the different types of spolvero paper and their various uses. Nice men so happy to share their extensive knowledge of art materials with us.

And then, lo and behold, she was back! She had her list. She wanted to shop. So the head clerk she had been berating helped her with all her purchases, subdued, but correct and perfectly civil. She paid (rather rudely). She left. 

We stood frozen as she made her way out of the shop -- the three men who worked there and Jonathan and I, no one moving or saying a word. I had my back to the door, but I could see the head clerk's eyes as he watched her leave, watched the door close behind her, watched her walk off. Then his body relaxed. "It's OK," he said to me. "She's Irish."

We all laughed. 

They gave us a 10% discount on our entire purchase, for no particular reason -- maybe just for not being her.