David is Greek and some of his stories involve his "Yiayia", the term Greeks use for grandmother. David's Yiayia lived with his family during his childhood and the classic story of why not to use brown bath towels will still bring tears of hysterics to my eyes. Not only because it's hysterical but because I too have a Yiayia in my history.
No, I am not from the islands nor do I have an ounce of Greek in my blood. But I did once have about 160 lbs of Greek in my life. My first significant boyfriend in my early 20's happened have a Greek father and an American mother. After falling (too quickly) in love I decided I should move to Greece at the tender age of 22. Bad decision, probably. My mother was appalled but my friends egged me on as as I'm sure they envisioned invitations to a romantic balmy Greek paradise filled with chisled men and sheep cheese in their futures. As usual, life rarely turns out to be as romantic or idealic as we'd like and when I arrived in Greece, my attitude on the culture quickly changed.
You see, in the US it was normal for Greek Americans to date American Americans. Most of our friends were 'mixed' couples such as this. However, once we set foot on the ancient soil of Ellas, this acceptance for my non-Greekness went up in smoke. To say I was hated may be too strong but my presence in their revered homeland was definitely not allowing his Greek family to find their happy places ( I will call this ex "The Greek" ). I knew there would be trouble when his friends picking us up at the airport quickly did the kiss/kiss cheek routine with The Greek but handed me handi-wipes before coolly shaking my hand. A Greek shaking your hand is the equivalent to a Greek spitting on your face.
We stayed for a couple of weeks in Athens with his childhood friend and her fiance, in our general youngish 20s age range. One thing that I still recall about this place 15 years later was that every single handle was made out of gold. The sink handles, the door handles and yes, even the toilet handle. The female half of this couple worked a full time job, did all of the cooking and cleaning and yet still devoted about 30 minutes each day to polishing these atroucious things. I knew she and I would never be BFFs when I observed this blatant waste of time. What came next was even better/worse......after we unpacked from our long trip across the US, the Atlantic, and most of Western Europe she kindly (so I at first thought) poked her head in to ask if we had any laundry that needed washing. The Greek started handing her things so I followed. She looked at me and said "You are not a man therefore I do not wash your things" and closed the door. Um, okay? He told me to not worry that is was just the Greek way and that we could take my soiled undies to a laundromat the next day. Um, okay.
The next morning as I stumbled jet lagged into the kitchen hoping for a caffeinated beverage and Greek hospitality, I was handed a pile of clean men's underwear instead. In my semi- awake confused state I handed them back. Why was I being given a stack of boxer briefs? She said "No, your turn to help. You iron." and led me to the kitchen table where an iron was set up. "Iron, what?" the pre-coffee me dared to question. "You must iron the underwears of the mens if you are to stay here" she practically spat at me. As if I had the gaul to not understand at 7 am that I needed to iron the underwears of the mens? I ran shrieking into the bedroom to shake The Greek and tell him there was no way over my dead body I was ironing anyone's underwear. I could feel her hatred boring into my back.
Sooooo, the rest of our stay at this gold-plated abode was just a wee bit, er, cold after that. They basically refused to feed me, which I was to learn was the Greek way of excommunication. On the last night of our stay I was using the bathroom and slipped on the wet floor. As I fell down I reached out and the shiny gold toilet handle was the first thing I could grab onto. Feeling it wrench off of the toilet and stay in my hand as I hit the floor was not the best feeling in the world. Taking my chewing gum and sticking the handle precariously back onto the the toilet was a much better feeling. "Takes your damn underwears and flush 'em" I thought as I headed to bed.
"Of course I didn't break their toilet handle" was the mantra which I would repeat over and over again for the next 13 weeks of our stay in Greece. Yes, I lied. But it was a necessary evil I justified. I needed to eat during my stay in Greece didn't I? However, my bathroom antics would follow me to the city of Kalamata- karma from Zeus for the toilet handle I later surmised.
In Kalamata we had to stay with The Greek's father, stepmother, aunts/uncles, Yiayia, and a loud gaggle of children whom I was sure were homeless until they all arrived at the dinner table that first night. In all, I think there were 14 or 15 of us in a 4 bedroom condo with ONE bathroom. Yup, one. We had to sign up to use it for bathing/bathrooming and someone repeatedly erased my name from the list each day. I had my eye on the oldest grandson/nephew/cousin or whomever the little wretch belonged to. He was given special privileges in this overcrowded hut because at 12, he was the oldest male grandchild. Some of these privileges included scarfing all of the baklava, stealing my underwear, and kicking the cat. I loathed him.
On our last night in this prison, I had to sneak into the bathroom under this nemesis's name because I just knew he had scratched me out earlier and penciled himself in. He was busy tormenting another victim and didn't notice me acing him. After showering I decided to use the toilet as I knew it would be several hours before the next chance. To flush this particular toilet one had to reach up and pull a chain that dangled helplessly from the middle of the ceiling. Well, it may have been the built up angst from the lack of food I was being offered or the general feeling of unwelcomeness I felt from The Greek's family but I pulled too hard and the chain came off into my hand. Crap (literally), not again!
As I sat and contemplated what to do next I heard Yiayia grunting in her black dress to claim her spot on the throne. This bathroom had 2 doors and I could see her coming towards the one on the right (Yes, the doors had smoky windows. Yes, I realize that was very odd for a bathroom). Knowing I had to act quickly I did what any disgruntled American girl traveling through Greece while her boyfriend's family acted openly hostile towards her would do- I put the chain on the floor, carefully shut the toilet lid, and fled through the door on the left.
As I slid into bed, I heard the first scream. My Greek was adequate enough to translate it as either "You little shit!" or "There's a little shit!" from Yiayia. The next scream was louder and came from the little tormenter as his Yiayia drug him back into the bathroom to figure out how to flush the now clogged toilet. Did I feel remorse for the fact that he took the blame for leaving a present in the toilet bowl and breaking the chain in the one bathroom that 15 people had to use? No. Sorry. I wasn't feeling the Greek love at all that night. Nor did I for most of that entire summer.
A year or so later The Greek decided to find himself a second girlfriend during the 2 months I was away traveling with friends in Europe. I think I completely baffled him by yelling "I brokes the toilets, I brokes the toilets" as I sped out of his driveway.
~ Single and 37
