My owl keychain has become a pirate (it lost an eye), so I’ve been looking for a new keychain all semester. For some reason I’ve become fixated on the idea that the keychain must be a Roman legionary. This is more difficult to find than you would think, even in Rome.
On our first day here, I dragged Rachel through every souvenir stand we passed. We saw colosseum keychains, Italian flag and food keychains, gladiator helmet keychains (of every conceivable variety and era), gladius keychains, moped keychains, Ionic column keychains, Audrey Hepburn keychains, even a keychain of Lupa nursing Romulus and Remus.
One of the interesting things about souvenir stands in Rome is that they all sell exactly the same selection of products. Not just the same in the sense that it’s all junk made in China; I mean there’s a selection of about thirty different Rome-themed keychains that are present at every souvenir stall, not to mention exactly the same white straw hat with the black polka-dotted band and exactly the same bobblehead Julius Caesar.
But finally, my perseverance paid off in the gift shop of the Gladiator Museum.
I sent a picture of him to Mom, who immediately dubbed him Centurion Gluteus Maximus.
