Another Giulio and Giuliana Story

For two weeks in a row recently, my host mother came into my room while I was at school, opened my window, and placed my gorgeous, expensive, well-loved Italian leather boots outside of the window on the second-story windowsill. The first time this happened, I was horrified, but Flannery assured me that Giuliana did that to her boots every day, as well, so I just got in the habit of taking them off the windowsill every evening when I got home, because, with Giuliana, it's frankly best to just roll with some things. She is a self-proclamed doctor with incredibly strong opinions. For example, Flannery once stayed in a hotel room that turned out to be kind of gross. There were crumbs in the sheets, but it was so late by the time she got in that she just slept on top of the covers and didn't bother making someone change her sheets. When she told Giuliana about this, you would have thought that she had walked down a dark alley along at night with a sign on her back that said, "Kidnap me." Giuliana just kept saying, "Hai fatto male! (you've done wrong!)" I got a similar reaction the time I told her that at college I shared a bathroom with *gasp* men because, apparently, sharing a bathroom is a surefire way to spread STD's. She gave me a whole talk about how I didn't know what kind of women those men consorted with. I even got a similar reaction the time she caught me walking barefoot in the house. At any rate, I digress. I decided to just take in my boots every evening and leave it at that.

However, a couple of weeks later, Giuliana called Flannery into my room when I wasn't at home and said, "I know Micaya is getting annoyed that I put her boots outside." Giuliana then asked Flannery to smell the room. She asked her if she could smell leather then went on to explain how very unhealthy it is to be around the smell of leather. Flannery, mind you, could smell nothing. It is true, my boots do have a lovely, leathery scent, but only if you stick your nose right up against them. At any rate, I started putting my boots in my closet after Flannery told me about that.