Monday, December 1, 2008

You know you're greek when ...

I found this list and couldn't refuse. I've italized the lines that are especially applicable to me, or someone in my family.

  1. You have at least one relative who wore a black dress every day for an entire year after a funeral... or their entire life!
  2. You spent your entire childhood thinking what you ate for lunch was pronounced "sangwich."
  3. You've experienced the phenomena of 150 people fitting into 50 square feet of yard during a family cookout.
  4. You were surprised to discover the FDA recommends you eat three meals day, not seven.
  5. You thought killing the lamb each year and having feta, tzatziki and olives on your dinner table was absolutely normal.
  6. You grew up thinking no fruit or vegetable had a fixed price and that the price of everything was negotiable through haggling.
  7. You were as tall as yiayia by the age of seven.
  8. You thought nylons were supposed to be worn rolled to the ankles.
  9. Mamas main hobby is cleaning.
  10. You were surprised to find out that wine was actually sold in stores.
  11. You never knew what to expect when you opened the margarine, after all you thought washing out and reusing margarine containers was normal.
  12. You thought Orthodoxy was the only religion in the world.
  13. You thought every meal had to be eaten with a hunk of bread in your left hand.
  14. Yiayia never threw anything away, you thought seeing washed plastic bags hanging on the clothes line was normal.
  15. You learned to play tavli before you went to school.
  16. You have at least one relative who came over on the boat.
  17. You have relatives who aren't really your relatives.
  18. You drank wine before you were a teenager.
  19. You grew up in a house with a yard that didn't have one patch of dirt that didn't have a flower or a vegetable growing out of it.
  20. You thought that talking loud was normal.
  21. You thought everyone got pinched on the cheeks and money stuffed in their pockets by their relatives.
  22. There was an icon in every room of the house, including the bathroom.
  23. You wear or at least own a gold chunky bracelet.
  24. Olive oil is like a drug - you can't survive without it.
  25. Your cheeks receive their weekly work out every time you visit an aunt.
  26. Your last name ends with: opoulos, os, as, or is
  27. When leaving a house, you stand at the front door for a half hour more and talk
  28. No air conditioning is on at the house or you'll get sick... "regma"
  29. You were forced to go to Greek school when you were little
  30. You use plastic grocery bags as garbage bags
  31. Your parents have never realized phone connections have gotten better in the last 20 years and still continue to scream on the phone when calling Greece
  32. You expect at least 600 people at your wedding
  33. Your 15 year old brother/sister can out drink ANY American guy
  34. Your only vacation is back to the homeland
  35. You tell your parents you're seeing someone and they start sending out wedding invitations.
  36. You're home an hour late and you're already listed as a missing person.
  37. You're Dad has those old Greek tapes in the car, and plays them on family drives. Especially in the vicinity of attractive members of the opposite sex.
  38. You break a leg, and yiayia thinks your life is over.
  39. You tell your parents you're having a party. They buy out the whole supermarket.
  40. It doesn't matter if people can't hear what you're talking about - you talk so much with your hands that people know what you're going on about anyway.
  41. You go to a wedding, and are introduced to cousins that you never knew existed.
  42. You tell mama you're not hungry and she thinks you have an eating disorder.
  43. You can distinguish between kefalotiri and kefalograviera
  44. You're an adult and are forced to be with your family at 12 midnight on New Year's Eve
  45. Your yiayia / mama / thia has a miracle cure for everything.
  46. Your mother or father still feels the need to tell you, "katse kala" in public
  47. You have been hit at some point with a pandofla
  48. You can dance kalamatiano, tsamiko, zembekiko without music
  49. You go to church picnics pretending you're there for reasons other than to check up / gossip about other Greeks
  50. You or a family member has been photographed with a donkey
  51. You are familiar with the phrase, "Sto leo yia to kalo sou"
  52. You have one or more of those porcelain figurines in your house or you have broken one of those porcelain figurines and mama still hasn't forgiven you for it
  53. Your parents make up the name of a street / store / TV show because they couldn't remember it or they couldn't pronounce it
  54. You still get scared when you hear the name "Baboola"
  55. Upon meeting another Greek you try to find out what village they're from
  56. You or a family member wears their Sunday best to go grocery shopping
  57. You go to a wedding or a baptism and complain about the food, but are the first one to ask for a "to go" plate
  58. You know someone who always feels the need to point out how much something they bought costs
  59. You have a bottle of OUZO in your house right now
  60. You have been threatened to be eaten by the Kako/ baboola / yero / pontiki when you were little
  61. Add aki to the end of any American word, and it becomes Greek
  62. Someone in your family owns any type of restaurant
  63. Your family inheritance includes olive trees and xorafyia
  64. Your entire house is a needlepoint warehouse...

1 comment:

MS said...

This list is pretty funny and I can relate to WAY too many of them!