I found this list and couldn't refuse. I've italized the lines that are especially applicable to me, or someone in my family.
- You have at least one relative who wore a black dress every day for an entire year after a funeral... or their entire life!
- You spent your entire childhood thinking what you ate for lunch was pronounced "sangwich."
- You've experienced the phenomena of 150 people fitting into 50 square feet of yard during a family cookout.
- You were surprised to discover the FDA recommends you eat three meals day, not seven.
- You thought killing the lamb each year and having feta, tzatziki and olives on your dinner table was absolutely normal.
- You grew up thinking no fruit or vegetable had a fixed price and that the price of everything was negotiable through haggling.
- You were as tall as yiayia by the age of seven.
- You thought nylons were supposed to be worn rolled to the ankles.
- Mamas main hobby is cleaning.
- You were surprised to find out that wine was actually sold in stores.
- You never knew what to expect when you opened the margarine, after all you thought washing out and reusing margarine containers was normal.
- You thought Orthodoxy was the only religion in the world.
- You thought every meal had to be eaten with a hunk of bread in your left hand.
- Yiayia never threw anything away, you thought seeing washed plastic bags hanging on the clothes line was normal.
- You learned to play tavli before you went to school.
- You have at least one relative who came over on the boat.
- You have relatives who aren't really your relatives.
- You drank wine before you were a teenager.
- 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.
- You thought that talking loud was normal.
- You thought everyone got pinched on the cheeks and money stuffed in their pockets by their relatives.
- There was an icon in every room of the house, including the bathroom.
- You wear or at least own a gold chunky bracelet.
- Olive oil is like a drug - you can't survive without it.
- Your cheeks receive their weekly work out every time you visit an aunt.
- Your last name ends with: opoulos, os, as, or is
- When leaving a house, you stand at the front door for a half hour more and talk
- No air conditioning is on at the house or you'll get sick... "regma"
- You were forced to go to Greek school when you were little
- You use plastic grocery bags as garbage bags
- 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
- You expect at least 600 people at your wedding
- Your 15 year old brother/sister can out drink ANY American guy
- Your only vacation is back to the homeland
- You tell your parents you're seeing someone and they start sending out wedding invitations.
- You're home an hour late and you're already listed as a missing person.
- 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.
- You break a leg, and yiayia thinks your life is over.
- You tell your parents you're having a party. They buy out the whole supermarket.
- 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.
- You go to a wedding, and are introduced to cousins that you never knew existed.
- You tell mama you're not hungry and she thinks you have an eating disorder.
- You can distinguish between kefalotiri and kefalograviera
- You're an adult and are forced to be with your family at 12 midnight on New Year's Eve
- Your yiayia / mama / thia has a miracle cure for everything.
- Your mother or father still feels the need to tell you, "katse kala" in public
- You have been hit at some point with a pandofla
- You can dance kalamatiano, tsamiko, zembekiko without music
- You go to church picnics pretending you're there for reasons other than to check up / gossip about other Greeks
- You or a family member has been photographed with a donkey
- You are familiar with the phrase, "Sto leo yia to kalo sou"
- 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
- Your parents make up the name of a street / store / TV show because they couldn't remember it or they couldn't pronounce it
- You still get scared when you hear the name "Baboola"
- Upon meeting another Greek you try to find out what village they're from
- You or a family member wears their Sunday best to go grocery shopping
- 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
- You know someone who always feels the need to point out how much something they bought costs
- You have a bottle of OUZO in your house right now
- You have been threatened to be eaten by the Kako/ baboola / yero / pontiki when you were little
- Add aki to the end of any American word, and it becomes Greek
- Someone in your family owns any type of restaurant
- Your family inheritance includes olive trees and xorafyia
- Your entire house is a needlepoint warehouse...
1 comment:
This list is pretty funny and I can relate to WAY too many of them!
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