MetaChat - Overheard in Athens...

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23 August 2007

Overheard in Athens... In my local small grocery: an American woman and her 13-yr.(+/-) son... →[More:]

Him: I need a water
Her: We don't need to buy water in Athens
Him: It's 50 cents
Her: What do you think we are, millionaires? 50 cents is 50 cents. You can fill your other bottle.
Him: But it's 50 cents.
Her: Fill your other bottle.
Him: I don't have another bottle. And it's 50 cents.
Her: What do you mean you don't have your other bottle? Where's your other bottle?
Him: I threw it away.
Her: What do you mean you threw it away? Where did you throw it away?

**** I wander out of earshot ****

Him: somethingsomething
Her: Where did you throw it away? Where? Where?
Him: It doesn't matter where I threw it away, I need a water. It's 50 cents.

**** I wander out of earshot ****

Him: somethingsomething. And that is why YOU are WRONG.

**** I leave ****

Heh.

post by: taz at: 04:22 | 27 comments

It's 100F out. I was tempted to buy the poor boy some water.

posted by taz 23 August | 04:27

I mean, it was 50 cents.

posted by taz 23 August | 04:37

He'd just throw it away.

posted by dg 23 August | 04:42

lol!

posted by taz 23 August | 04:43

I thought this was going to end with the mom making him dig the water bottle out of a trash heap.

posted by PY 23 August | 04:47

Yeah... that's what I was wondering too. Was that her plan?

I'll never know.

posted by taz 23 August | 04:48

Plenty of water at my place if anyone wants some.

posted by dg 23 August | 05:19

Athens?

posted by chuckdarwin 23 August | 06:18

Thessaloniki? I must have missed that bit. Goddamn, my memory sucks.

posted by chuckdarwin 23 August | 06:28

drinking foreign water ? nevar. it's poisoned

posted by penguinbukkake 23 August | 08:32

psst...taz moved to Athens a few months ago.

posted by muddgirl 23 August | 09:10

All I wanted was a water, but she wouldn't give it too me...

I'M NOT CRAZY

*INSTITUTIONALIZED*

YOU'RE THE ONE THAT'S CRAZY

*INSTITUTIONALIZED*

posted by drezdn 23 August | 09:11

Wonderful drezdn. Just wonderful.

posted by richat 23 August | 09:23

Ahh, youth! When I was his age, kids didn't get to drink bottled water. Heck, we didn't even get to drink tap water! We drank rain water, or in times of drought, graywater that we collected in empty milk jugs and discarded pie tins, and the fact that we did it all by ourselves made that cruddy tepid liquid taste like sweet, sweet nepenthe.

posted by Atom Eyes 23 August | 09:42

You had milk jugs and pie tins??? You lucky sob. We had to cup our hands and stand outside for hours during lightning storms to gather water.

posted by iconomy 23 August | 10:17

You had hands?!

posted by Atom Eyes 23 August | 10:25

LUXURY!

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 23 August | 10:33

I have some well-to-do friends who were in Amsterdam and talked about having to pay $4 (US) for water. This as an illustration of how little our dollars buy over there.

50 cents seems like a bargain.

posted by danf 23 August | 10:45

50 Euro cents for a small water, 1 Euro for a regular size water. $4? Gah.

posted by taz 23 August | 11:41

Holy cats, drezdn, did "Insitutionalized" just get posted to MeFi, or something? Out of the blue, I've been humming it for a couple of days now.

Ico, you lucky beasts. We had to plop ourselves sullenly down, our desert-wizened pin-hole mouths turned bleakly toward the unwinking sun, hoping that someday a drop of dew would fall.

posted by Elsa 23 August | 12:06

Elsa, the relevant exclamation would seem to be "Plate of shrimp!"

posted by small_ruminant 23 August | 12:12

Hey! I just mentioned "Repo Man," too!

Whoa. You're, like, freaking me out.

posted by Elsa 23 August | 12:17

I've been to your schools, I've been to your churches, I've been to your Institutional Learning Facilities. And you think I"M the one that's crazy?

*rocks out*

posted by BitterOldPunk 23 August | 13:13

You know what's awesome about that song? It's even more relevant today.

I am so proud to have passed my Repo Man soundtrack onto a friend's 14 y.o. son. He and his friends totally adopted Institutionalized.

posted by small_ruminant 23 August | 14:17

Though the flip side of how awesome it is, is how depressingly apropos it still is.

posted by small_ruminant 23 August | 14:26

I have this image of the parents throwing water bottles at their kid, like the soldiers in that video from Iraq.

posted by dhartung 23 August | 15:44

But "Pablo Picasso" is a cover!

Mommy, lobby for recycling fees on bottled water and shut the fuck up.

posted by brujita 23 August | 22:54

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