INT. BEDROOM (@STEELOPUS’ ROOM) - SUNDAY MORNING - RETARDEDLY EARLY 6:49AM

An exhausted 29 year old, STEVE, sleeps in his bed, thankful that his parents have gone away for 10 days and he has some semblance of total freedom. He is motionless, completely asleep, and dreaming of beautiful women that play guitars, drive Subarus, and understand why Facebook is a stinky load of “Web 2.0” crap. A phone rings, disturbing the peace and waking Steve from his slumber.

STEVE
(mumbling)
Uhhhg! What the fuck?! Leave me alone!

The phone rings 5 times. Steve can hear the answering machine pick up in the adjacent room, but no one leaves a message.  Steve hopes for the best and tries to fall back asleep.  2 minutes later, the phone rings again.

STEVE
FUCK! WHAT THE HELL? DAMMIT!

Steve rolls out of bed and stumbles over to his desk, grabbing the phone after the 3rd ring. Normally he would just stay in bed and try to ride out the sonic assault, but as his parents have recently left, he is a bit concerned that perhaps they are calling with a problem. Seeing the words “Unknown Name : Unknown Number” on the caller ID only adds to his concern, as he knows that most mobile phones don’t display caller information.  Angered and belligerent, Steve answers the call.

STEVE
Hello?

After a few seconds with no response, he repeats himself.

STEVE
Hello? Good morning?

Suddenly, a shrill VOICE from the other end of the line pierces the silence like a Jouster attacking a pane glass window.

VOICE
(fast and shrill)
…incoherent greeting in Italian including the words pronto, buon giorno, and Adina…

In an instant, Steve understands what the situation is.   This is one of his aunts calling from Italy.   He’s met them once in his life that he can remember, back when he was a pre-teen youth.  They speak not a single word of English and his Italian hasn’t been comprehensible since he graduated high school 11 years earlier.

VOICE
(confused)
Pronto? …more incoherent Italian…

Steve is getting visibly frustrated.   He hates this situation, and it happens several times a year.   Normally it’s not a problem as he can just say “Un momento!” in broken Italian and yell up to his parents to pick up the phone to continue the conversation.  This morning, Steve did not have that luxury.   He was suddenly wide-awake.

STEVE
(verbally stumbling)
Hello… uh… ciao… uhh… Adina is… uh… not home. Uh… Adina is no casa.

Thinking to himself: “‘Adina is no casa?’  You’re a dumbass.  That makes no sense.” There is a long pause, 10 seconds or so, while Steve tries to muscle up any words that might be helpful in trying to explain that he is Adina’s son and she and dad are on vacation in Florida for several days.

VOICE
(confused)
Pronto?! …more incoherent Italian…

Steve can hear her speaking to someone else in Italian and notices the word figlio, which he remembers means “son” in Italian.

STEVE
(trying again)
I… uh… am Adina’s figlio Steve… uh… Un momento!

VOICE
(sounding frustrated and annoyed, as well as confused)
Adina? Pronto? …more incoherent Italian…

The call has lasted well over two minutes at this point and absolutely no pertinent information has been communicated.  Steve switches himself into recovery mode and sits down in front of his computer.  He pulls up translate.google.com, but the page doesn’t load.

VOICE
PRONTO? ELLO?

It takes another 15 seconds before Steve realizes the reason the page isn’t loading is because he sets his torrents to upload at full bandwidth overnight.  In the blink of an eye: Command-Tab over to Transmission.   Command-L to switch the app to Speed Limit mode.  Command-Tab back to Flock.  Command-Period to stop the page loading.   Command-R to reload the page.  The page loads and he types “Adina and Sam are not home.  They are in vacation in Florida.”  He clicks the Translate button.

STEVE
Uh… un momento!

EXT. HOUSE & GLOBE - SPECIAL EFFECT

The message is routed through the computer, through cables and wires, across the globe. It hits its Google destination, the CPU processes the translation, and it sends the result back in the reverse direction ending up at Steve’s monitor.

INT. BEDROOM (@STEELOPUS’ ROOM) - SUNDAY MORNING - RETARDEDLY EARLY 6:55AM

Steve reads the result over the phone.  While he can’t speak it from memory, his pronunciation of Italian is actually quite good.

STEVE
Adina e Sam non sono a casa. Loro sono in vacanza in Florida.

VOICE
(immediately, gratefully)
Ah! Vacanza! Si! Grazie! Arrivederci! Ciao ciao!

STEVE
(relieved)
Si! Arrived—-

Before he can finish, he hears the call end as they hang up the phone.

STEVE
Dammit!

He puts the phone down, now wide-awake.  Command-W to close the Google Translate window.  Command-1 to switch to his Twitter tab.   Command-R to refresh the page.  He types: “It’s going to take more than 140 characters to explain why I’m tweeting at 6:59AM on a Sunday. For now, it’s back to bed.” and clicks the update button.   He hops back in bed and falls asleep - wondering why it is so hard for the Italians to remember that we’re a full 6-hours behind them.