Dimitto auricolas

Ten years ago, when I was still a journalist and not a ronin, when I had a paper to write articles for, a salary and my own dear little table, a computer of my own and a mail address that married my name to that of the paper, and collegues with whom to discuss this and that, the euro popped in and killed straight away our own dear lira and, after a while, with the crysis of Euroland and all, chopped me out of my job. Oh how happy italians were, when the euro cried its first baby cry, to welcome this new brand of notes all coloured in orange and green and purple. Flowers blooming in the sky. The colours of doom, to me. Oh how many times did I ask this and that if they were happy to buy milk at double the price of before, but, lo, in euros... Nobody listened. The party had begun, italians were no more italians, but europeans. Michelangelo and Raffaello and all our Roman past seemed to be forgotten as we melted in the gray,  european pot, that has and had no soul or heart, but lots of numbers and famelic bureaucrats...
I felt angry and betrayed and dispossessed of my country, that had given so much to the whole world. Beauty and art and grace dwell in this little boot that sleeps in the middle of sweet waters.... The euro, to me, a dictator, a foreigner, a new conqueror. Oh how I missed my dear old lira bank notes, with the dear faces of the artists I had always cherished: Michelangelo and Verdi and Caravaggio and even Mrs Montessori with her white hair of clouds and snow!

I said all this and much more to a friend the other day in a cafè that is nose to nose with the Colosseum. And when my Salomon speech was over I opened my bennibag to pay the low bill and found out that someone, who knows who, had given me, instead of the round two euro coin, an old Cinquecento lire - a twin coin, but worthless, to the euro - for change. And my friend, with round eyes and a little smile on her lips: "Well, now, you should be happy, you have got your lire back!". As the saying in latin goes: Dimitto auricolas...