Exploiting women’s feelings of guilt
Nicoletta liked Egidio’s silences – those silences that sometimes make a woman feel as though she’s lacking something, almost as though she’s to blame, and therefore compelled to make amends. In reality, outside the bus he drove for his job, Egidio didn’t know a bloody thing, and it seemed out of place for him to say things like: ‘You know, when I turn right, I hear a strange squeak? Could it be the passengers throwing my wheel alignment off by leaning to one side?’ In short, Egidio was a bit like Trump or Biden: either someone wrote his lines for him, or he didn’t know what to say.
She’d see him at the bar in the bus depot, where she worked as a secretary; Giorgio was there too, who was in love with her, but she didn’t fancy him – he was far too forward. Until one day, during his lunch break, Egidio said to her: “They’ve changed my bus route.” Unfortunately, because Nicoletta’s voice was very hoarse, she didn’t say a word, and Egidio walked off thinking: “I told you she didn’t give a damn about my bus.”
So Giorgio, realising that Nicoletta needed to make amends to Egidio, seized the opportunity and invited her out for dinner that evening; she accepted as a way of making amends for not having spoken to Egidio, despite having a terrible sore throat and being terrified of catching a chill. Naturally, Giorgio had made all the necessary arrangements, and given the cold weather, as well as turning the heating up to the max, he’d stashed two neon heaters and a fire extinguisher in the back seat, powered by a generator in the boot. So, with the temperature set to a comfortable 40 degrees, he went to pick her up outside her house whilst the first tropical fruits began to appear on the dashboard.
During dinner, Giorgio did everything he could to impress her; he immediately poured himself some wine to pose as a sommelier: “Ah, good perlage, just the right amount of fruitiness and…”, just as the waiter was finishing clearing the table for the previous customers, taking away the bottle of fruity vinegar as well. Giorgio smiled, pretending he’d been joking, whilst the vinegar began to scorch the few intestinal villi spared by his gastritis. But Giorgio wasn’t put off; he wanted to appear cultured, so with one hand on his forehead and Wikipedia wedged between his legs, he talked to her about everything from Zambia’s per capita income to the different varieties of the tiger mosquito. She began to suspect something was amiss when he also said, ‘Error 404, page not found’.
In short, when he dropped Nicoletta off outside her house, he switched off the car and tried to kiss her. She, of course, had no intention of going along with it, but being a very shy girl with a great sense of guilt and a need for atonement, Nicoletta asked Giorgio to move the car so the neighbours wouldn’t hear the Rapper-Trapper music blaring out, whilst he was already looking forward to a slobbery French kiss – partly to dilute the vinegar he’d drunk.
And so, whilst Giorgio was moving his Ford Ka Plus – on which he’d already paid 13 instalments – he didn’t spot the private parking barriers and knocked one over, cracking the oil pan. When Nicoletta saw Giorgio crying like a child as he looked at his now-wrecked car, she felt terribly guilty for not having kissed him! Nicoletta then offered to let Giorgio use her car, saying he could come back the next day to sort out his own car. As Nicoletta drove Giorgio home, he seemed sad, whilst she kept repeating: ‘It’s my fault – I told you to move the car.’ Giorgio stopped suddenly and realised the time had come to capitalise on her guilt. With a sly grin, he told her she had to choose: either spend the night feeling guilty for having indirectly wrecked his car, or kiss him to make amends for the damage done – at least morally. She didn’t think twice; she got out of the car, opened the boot and, using her jack, smashed her own windscreen with two sharp blows. Then she got back into the car, covered her throat with a shopping bag and drove off, saying to him, “And now we’re even!” Nicoletta, as well as taking home the guilt of having asked Giorgio to move his car (just to avoid kissing him), and a windscreen she’d smashed herself to make amends, spent 10 days in bed with a high fever because she’d also driven the whole way back as it started to snow, and without a windscreen it was like riding a moped – but without a helmet.
The moral of the story: if you don’t take your guilt out on others, you’ll end up taking it out on yourself.