Tool Time in Italy

While having your own place in Italy puts a new spin on tourism, it also comes with responsibility. There is no front desk nor landlord to call when something doesn’t work. Just like home, it’s time to put on your handyman cap.

 Our apartment is in a building constructed sometime before 1900, so it has even more excuse for creaking bones than I do. 

Before Cecile and I arrived, Gillian and Will had scoped out the building supply stores and outfitted us with a basic set of tools. It wasn’t long before I got to try out both.

While trying to clear a sluggish drain in the kitchen sink, I broke a piece of pipe. There was nothing else to do but to find an Italian equivalent to Ace Hardware.

“Brico” is a general term in Italy for do-it-yourself – an adaptation of the French bricolage. The word is used in the name of several hardware store chains, from the huge BricoLarge to the very modern Brico.io to the inexplicably smaller MaxiBrico. Fortunately for me, there is a MaxiBrico tucked in an industrial park about 15 minutes of winding road from our apartment.

Hardware stores are magic. No matter if they are in Mid-Missouri or Mid-Tuscany, they attract some of us like light bulbs do moths. Especially if they are the kind that have little bins full of nuts, bolts and doohickeys that you just might need some day. (Even if they are measured in millimeters instead of 64ths.)

And here’s the good news: Clerks here understand the universal Tool Time language. The guy at MaxiBrico had the same response as the guy at Ace Hardware to my hand waving and “This thingy that goes into something under my sink is busted.” He looked at my broken piece of pipe, turned, led me to the plumbing department and wordlessly pointed to a whole box of thingies. 

He even smiled and nodded when I said “Grazie.” And I’m sure that, just like the guys at Ace, the nod turned to a shake when I turned around.

And like hardware clerks in any town or country, he knew he would see me again. It always takes at least two trips to the hardware store before you finish a project. 

I’ve been to the MaxiBrico three times and to its upscale Brico cousins twice. You got to love DIY tourism.