The lady behind the window at the post office looks me straight in the eye, unsmiling. Although she lets out a world-weary sigh, I detect no emotion in her face as she brings out a pair of scissors with a flourish from a drawer, and cuts my ATM card in half.
This would be bad enough, even if it wasn’t the third time she has done this. Three ATM cards in the past year, and I still haven't got to use one. My Italian post office account has turned into a savings account, mainly because it’s impossible for me to withdraw money from it.
I originally opened it because sometimes, just sometimes, I get paid by an 'above-board' promoter who wants to transfer money electronically (probably a sophisticated double bluff to fool the authorities that all musicians get paid such tiiny sums as these).
I chose the Italian post office as a home for my Euro fortune since I reasoned that it’s been going ever since Mrs Centurion first wrote letters addressed to ‘Mr Centurion, Hadrian's Wall, South of Pictland’.
Wrong again. Picture the scene - a 365-day a year gale blows across the Northumbrian wasteland. Mr Centurion is attempting to write a postcard back to his muse-like wife, using an eagle’s quill filled with Scotsman's blood.
He scrawls "Wish you were here" on the back of a photo of Mel Gibson and ties it to a pigeon’s foot, hoping that this Rattus alle penne will eventually fly over the imperial capital.
As he chucks this noble pleb of birds into the eye of the storm, he sees it immediately drop the epistle into the churning waters of the North Sea, and head for the Bahamas.
What I am saying is that any trust conferred on the Italian postal service because of its long service is misplaced.
Today I signed three 20-page forms and received what looks like a plastic calculator from the lady behind the counter, all with the aim of improving the security of my paltry store of Euros. Together she and I can build a wall of strength around the pitiful balance of my account which would survive even an attack by a horde of wild Celtcs.
After I have signed the third 20-page form, the lady gives me the plastic calculator. I look at it as if it is a raffle prize and ask how it works. Apparently I have to use it to dial up a new PIN every time I want to use the ATM card.
She then asks me for my card and tells me to switch on the plastic calculator. She then tells me to put in the PIN which is dispayed on it. I do - and the number is rejected. She looks at me, saying "Is this the first time you have used this card? You must register it first." I struggle to find the Italian words for "That's the reason I have come here today. Not to receive a free gift of a plastic toy."
She heads off in the direction of the back office - the very place where a few months ago a postman cut off his index finger in the sliding door. The postman who at last year's Christmas party set off a rocket which hit the roof and rebounded, getting caught inside his shirt, burning him severely.
I sneak a glance at the queue which snakes round itself towards the door. People are looking at me as if I am Michael Jackson's doctor. Well, exceot if Michael Jackson were still alive and he was in the queue – in which case he would be looking at me as if to say “Got any anaesthetics?”
I ask the lady behind the counter if I can withdraw money with a card which is cut in two.
“You can get money with your travellers cheques."
I have never bought travellers cheques. Ever. “Sorry, I don’t have any.”
All the converation so far has been carried on in my broken Italian. A guy steps forward from the queue to offer assistance.
They talk for a while. She punches buttons on a keyboard. She tells me that due to overdue bank charges I have only 5 Euros in my bank account.
I pray that the ground will open up beneath my feet. I mutter something about waiting for money to arrive from England, and shuffle away from the window, mortified. I have kept the whole queue waiting for hours.
As I leave, the lady draws herself up to her full height and tells me there will be a charge for cutting up my 'old' card. I ask how much it is.
"Five Euros".
I am an Irishman in Italy who has nothing. Nothing but two halves of an ATM card and a pair of leaking gutties.
Outside, mopeds carry Italian girls to and fro. Traffic lights change with no visible effect on the traffic. It’s early evening and I’m thinking about a botte of wine I bought yesterday.
The phone rings and Andrea invites me to play with him at a show in Genoa. I have enough petrol in the car. My guitar’s on the backseat, and I have a box of CDs in the boot.
I might just pull through this one, doc, but it’s going to be close.