Car Insurance - Turning Tuscan: A Step-by-Step Guide to Going Native - page 138

the other and gesticulates elegantly with the third, he patiently explains the impact on in-
terest payments of extinguishing an existing loan on a present vehicle and taking out a new
loan on another vehicle. Every now and then prospective clients come by, wait ten minutes
or so, grasp the situation, and then head off somewhere else.
The couple ahead of me eventually leaves and it's finally my turn. The salesman asks me if
I saw something on the lot that interests me.
“I'm the guy who called earlier. I'm here to pick up the Renault Scenic.”
“Oh, you're Signor Hilt. Hi, I'm Marcello. Sorry to keep you waiting. It's been a hectic
morning!”
We sit down, he fills out forms, and he steps out to make copies of all of my relevant doc-
uments. It's all rolling along smoothly, but suddenly he looks at his watch and expresses
concern that we may not make it to ACI on time. It seems that we will need to go the Auto-
mobile Club d'Italia, a sort of deputized Department of Motor Vehicles, to sign additional
documents before the deal is done. He dials a number. No answer. He looks at me apologet-
ically and says, “I'm afraid it's already 12:30. They've all gone for lunch. Can you come
back at 3:30?”
No problem. After several years of living here, I can drag out a three-hour lunch break
along with the best of them. I even know the perfect place. I drive up to a lovely restaurant
in the nearby village of Corciano where I've been once before when Pam and I were ex-
ploring backroads Umbria. I plan to console myself for my sufferings with a long, leis-
urely, wine-sopped lunch in a classy restaurant, but the place is closed for winter vacation.
It's Monday. Nothing is open anywhere. After spending half my time in a fruitless search
through picturesque Umbrian villages, I throw in the towel and eat Sushi at a fast food joint
in a Warner Brothers shopping mall outside of Perugia.
At 3:30 I show up at the auto showroom. The afternoon shift is in full swing, and two as-
sociates now accompany the lone salesman. I can tell immediately from their expressions
that something is wrong.
“Do you have a copy of the CDP in your glove compartment? We've looked through all the
documentation, and we can't seem to find it.”
It's the first time in six weeks that anyone has mentioned this particular document, and I
ask what it is. All three of them roll their eyes in unison. One of them explains that the cer-
tificato di proprietà is a document with a shiny metallic circle embossed at the top that is