Yes! We have to admit that in Sicily we have an institution called the S.p.A. (Society of parking attendant !!!)
Just kidding of course…
Parking attendant or “posteggiatore abusivo” in Italian, is nowaday part of our social folklore which is spreading anywhere in Southern Italy all the way up to Rome !!!
This character might be as a valet parking attendant but we label him also as a “guardia macchina”, a car guard.
He just decided to become the official parking attendant of cars which are regularly parked in their legal and allowed spaces.
Any example?
We are in a supermarket provided of a regular parking?
No matter! You will find him there waiting for you. What is his ploy? He will help you to carry your shopping cart as far as your car or just lifts your shopping bags up and drops them in the back…
A good Christian Sicilian would think “it’s so pitiable!” and then comes the moment when you drop in his hands from fifty cents to one euro. A real business!!!
He produces an unmistakable sound or word which is loudly pronounced with hoarse voice “capo…capo” (boss…boss). You can target him and recognize in a crowd by his cap with visor he wears from the winter to the summer, regardless how cold or hot it can be.
He has also a whistle, a money belt that encircles most of the time a waiste not really skinny.
He is able to find places where a normal human being would not have thought …
Along the sidewalk, just next to a driveway and a trash bin. If you ever dare to argue or shake your head, he would tell you: “no need to argue, please”. I have been doing this job for twenty years. After you feel almost intimidated by so much expertise and so talented wording you can’t do anything. Just hope that no fine will ever be delivered at home, but you will remember that “Toto’” (it might be his name) knew what he was doing.
Your relationship with these “Guardian Angels” is not often a gentle one. Quite often the driver would not deceive to the charming arguments delivered by the angel, but there is no way out at the end of the street. Once he targets you, you feel entrapped.
The moral duty, imposes to give something and very often to convince you to do so he will say: “Young men… leave a coffee paid at the bar for me, please”, explaining that in a quite disputable and elegant Italian, which will certainly make a break into the generous hearted Sicilian driver.
It is pure irony of course…
Sometimes you can meet a parking attendant that does not suggest that he would like something, but he will speak up to you and say” boss, one euro please”. There you go! No way to escape, unless you literally run or you face the man and say with innocence “I don’t have any change at the moment..I will give them when I come back later on”.
If you are lucky, you will find him there, otherwise he is still there leaning on your car. Yes, he will be still there. The parking attendant remembers everything and everybody! Then you have two choices: you give what you can afford or choose or give to him what he requested: one euro.
The trick is to understand the type of parking attendant that you find. Not all of them claim, but those who do claim, are the “cammurriusi” in Sicilian (persistant) and you have to be lucky not to find possibly your car scratched by the driver’s side or all the way around the car. Why? Well, because Mr Toto’ couldn’t wait for you to get the right change. He doesn’t like it.
But most of the time you develope a kind of mutual respect or word of honour that leads the parking attendant to be understanding and indulgent to you.
Definitely he can close his eyes when he looks after women and children, but when he deals with men it is a role game where the stronger wins.
Looks, winks, words … everything can be drawn out in front of these guardians.
The location in town of the parking area, plays an important role in the game too.
Years of dealing with parking attendant will develope a skill of scouting the best place to avoid our friends in town.
It is a weird and kind of social folkloric story about the parking attendant, very well known by the authorities and well aware; they eventually can’t do or do not want to do that much sometimes…
The parking attendant is waiting for you and will be part of your Sicilian adventure or experience which needs to be framed into the understanding of Sicilian mentality with a good dosage of sense of humour, generous indulgence, patience and smile…