Well, you’ve no doubt read several posts about our shopping experiences (expeditions?) in a number of Italian cities on this blog.  Today we took on the task of shopping for dinner ingredients among other things at the “supermarket” just down the road from our villa outside Chiusi.  The supermarket here is more what we would term a mall, with clothing, luggage and leather stores, a Tabbacheria (smokeshop) and several electronics and appliance stores.  After finishing our grocery shopping, Dale remembered he wanted to pick up a cheap electric heater for the villa, so after loading the car back in he went.  We had already checked a couple of the electronics shops to no avail.

A very short time later out Dale comes, with a Cheshire cat grin and a relatively large box proudly proclaiming it’s 25 watt contents.  Hmmm…having dealt with small heaters most of my life, I found it odd that you could get a heater that output  only 25 watts when they are normally 1500 watts.  Well, European power is a little different from what we are used to in the US, so I figured they must be rated differently.  

After returning home, we put away the groceries and were putzing around while Dale unpacked his new heater.  I think I was still in the kitchen when I heard the uproarious laughter begin. No unusual occurrence with this group, but when it kept up I wandered out to the living room to investigate.  This is the scene I stumbled upon:

The 25 watt heater was not putting out any heat.  We checked the box and found there were many languages represented:

That’s right, Dale’s new electric heater is in reality a bug zapper.  Fortunately, Lynda had the foresight to pick up a couple bottles of premium Italian vino, priced at 1.99 and 2.49, so we will have some inexpensive refreshment to enjoy while Dale entertains us trying to stay warm under the cheerful glow of his new bug zapper!