When we were kids \u2014 three Greek girls with immigrant parents who thought \u201cGood morning\u201d was pronounced \u201cGood morring\u201d
\u2014 life was already a circus.<\/p>\n
Add in our *aunts* and you had something between a sitcom, a Bollywood melodrama, and a BBC documentary on endangered species.
### Aunt Yiota: The Fish & \u201cPiss\u201d Lady Aunt Yiota ran a fish and chip shop. She also ran the English language into the ground. Her vocabulary was so limited, Shakespeare turned in his grave every time she opened her mouth. She once proudly announced to a customer: \u201c
Today special: mushy *piss*.\u201d Yes. She meant peas. No one corrected her. Because, honestly, nothing said \u201cauthentic immigrant dining experience\u201d like a side of golden chips, fried cod, and steaming hot **piss**.
Bon app\u00e9tit. Her customer service was world-class too. She\u2019d bark across the counter: \u201cThank you. Fack you. Come again.\u201d And people *did* come again, because nothing makes fried food taste better than accidental verbal abuse. <\/p>\n
### Aunt Androulla: Bollywood & Buffets Then there was Aunt Androulla. Imagine a small planet. Now give it a floral dress and an obsession with Bollywood soundtracks. <\/p>\n
That was her. She\u2019d sit in front of the TV, watching Shah Rukh Khan dance in slow motion, salivating like a St Bernard. But she wasn\u2019t drooling over him. Oh no. She was fantasizing about the buffet at the wedding scene. You could hear her stomach growling like a thunderstorm in Thessaloniki. Honestly, NASA could have tracked it. <\/p>\n
### Aunt Ellie: The Elegant Stinker Aunt Ellie was the opposite. She spoke perfect English \u2014 accent and all \u2014 because she grew up in the UK. She\u2019d sip her tea with her pinky raised, saying things like, \u201cOh darling, the weather is rather splendid today.\u201d But personal hygiene? Forget it. Let\u2019s just say if octopus and squid had been bottled by Dior, they would have smelled like heaven compared to Aunt Ellie after a summer\u2019s day. Walking past her waslike being tear-gassed by Poseidon. And the acne. Oh, the acne. It was so bad we were given strict family orders: \u201cDo NOT kiss Aunt Ellie. You\u2019ll be infected.\u201d We obeyed. Until my older sister, aged seven, looked her straight in the eye and announced: \u201cWe\u2019re not allowed to kiss you because we\u2019ll catch it.\u201d Aunt Ellie stood there with her mouth wide open for at least three minutes. Honestly, you could have parked a Lada in there.<\/p>\n
### Aunt Toulla: The Greek Hyacinth Then came Aunt Toulla, the Greek answer to Hyacinth Bucket \u2014 except even Hyacinth would have told her to calm down. She was the goddess of food preservation. She believed leftovers lasted not days, not weeks \u2014 but eras. Egyptians had mummies. She had moussaka in Tupperware. Guests would be served dishes that had been \u201cresting\u201d in her fridge since the previous Olympics. She\u2019d smile proudly and declare: \u201cEat! It\u2019s good! Preserved! Like Cleopatra!\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","class_list":["post-10744","rtcl_listing","type-rtcl_listing","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","rtcl_category-influencers","listing-item","rtcl-listing-item"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketplace28.store\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rtcl_listing\/10744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketplace28.store\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rtcl_listing"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketplace28.store\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rtcl_listing"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketplace28.store\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketplace28.store\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marketplace28.store\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rtcl_listing\/10744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10746,"href":"https:\/\/marketplace28.store\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rtcl_listing\/10744\/revisions\/10746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketplace28.store\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketplace28.store\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}