eirinn99 wrote:
MitchellNJ wrote:
It's not "REAL" Italian since there's no plastic on the seat.

? I don't get it

Eirinn99--

It's an ethnic joke about Italians you wouldn't get unless you lived in the US. I can relate because my grandparents were East Coast Italians...

It stems from Italians being immigrants to the US in the early 20th century. They had very little money, so when they could afford nice furniture, they put plastic coverings on it all to protect it and prolong its "new look". After the early 1900s, it continued on as a cultural thing more than anything else...a sort of "learned behavior". I had an uncle in New Jersey that was an executive with a large cosmetics firm and made GOOD money, and we used to tease him because there were plastic carpet runners all through his million-dollar house, and no one was allowed to sit on the plastic covered furniture in the living room unless it was a family gathering.

RK