Recently two of my best friends visited me in Rome. During our time together we were loopy and weak from too much laughter and too much walking. While staggering past yet another souvenir shop, my pal spotted this gem.
It is titled simply: Calendario Romano, which anyone with a passing knowledge of Italian can tell you translates to The Hot Priest Calendar.
Immediately my friend grabbed all three available copies. " Don't you want anything else?" asked the dubious Italian man behind the counter, "you don't want to look around?" he gestured to the shelves of I heart Roma t-shirts, David boxer shorts, gladiator shot glasses and Coliseum magnets. I thought he was concerned that as Americans we would demand our money back when we opened the calendar to discover it was not a calendar so much as a full page photo with the numbers 1-30 0r 1-31 crammed against the bottom of the page. However,when we returned home and did a bit of research, it was discovered that the true reason the man behind the counter had been leery of our purchase was because only one of the calendar models was new to this edition.The calendar was unfortunately a "best-of" from previous years. I guess the priest/model market just isn't what it used to be.
Quite frankly, I find it difficult to believe that these are all men of the cloth, but I am certainly no expert on what a priest should look like. After all,the priest in my parish at home was 107 years old, smoked cigars and drove a baby blue Cadillac.
Additionally, just as I am not a connoisseur of priests, I am also not a connoisseur of attractive-people calendars, like those that feature The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders (am I showing my age?) or the boys from One Direction(I don't know who they are exactly, but I know one is 2 seconds away from a Taylor Swift song). Are the set-ups in these calendars always so silly? Can't the subject just stand there and be pretty? Although I suppose I should just be grateful none of these "priests" were wearing cut-off shorts and have --oopsy--gotten soaking wet while he washed a car.
Poor October. Who do you think he ticked off in that he had to wear the hat? Is it a special ode-to-
Children-of-the-Corn Halloween shoot?
And there is Mr. Decemeber, caught unaware by the camera as he strolled the streets of Rome... reading about the streets of Rome.
And November , oh that 'ol November was just minding his own business reading the morning paper, daydreaming of four-wheeling, sipping a lovely glass of Gran Duque Dale (total product placement) and surprise! Picture snapped!
March is a bit of a polarizing month.My friends thought March was styled to re-enact the cover of a harlequin novel exploring the agony of forbidden love between priest and parishioner( don't worry, it's a happy ending for everyone: he decides to remain committed and faithful to God and she marries his twin brother). I think, however, that the female hand belongs not to a starry-eyed church goer, but rather it belongs to his mom, making sure Jimmy gets a little something in his stomach before Mass.
Should you like to order a hot priest calendar for yourself, this is the website: http://www.calendarioromano.org
You can find additional information on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calendarioromano?fref=ts
And for those of you who aren't into the whole "hot priest" thing, no worries! Check out the ad for ROMAntics CATS: a calendar for those with duel loves of Victorian Era women and cats.
