My husband’s family is Greek. Weirdly, that fact is an
essential part of this blog post.
Recently, the Greek church in our area turned seventy-five
and a celebratory dinner was held at the Harrisburg Hilton. We were on the
guest list, along with our four children. My husband thought we should arrange
for a baby sitter. After pointing out that the evening would include, at a
minimum, several speeches in Greek about the founding of the church, prayers
from the local priests as well as the bishop from Pittsburgh, and half-an-hour
of Greek dancing by sullen children forced into it by their parents, he saw the
wisdom of bringing our kids, including the baby, a/k/a Mommy’s little exit
strategy.
About an hour in, long after the appetizer tables had
emptied but before we’d been handed the ubiquitous Greek salads, we saw a film.
It reminded me of those slideshows we’d watched in elementary school. Back in
the dark ages, before the rise and fall of the Betamax machine. The need to
change slides was heralded by a loud beep. Particularly memorable was a
slideshow of Lord of the Flies. I was in fifth grade when I watched it.
Piggy is chased across the sand, while the narrator states
in a flat voice, “Kill the pig! Cut his throat!”
*beep*
Time and wine has
blurred what I learned about the Greek immigrants who came to the Central
Pennsylvania area. I do know my husband’s grandfather was responsible for
bringing a large percentage of them here. He gave them a place to live and a
job until they could stand on their own. He drank twenty cups of coffee a day
until his doctor told him to quit. After that, he drank twenty cups of hot water.
He died when my husband was seven. I wish I’d met him.
At some point, I got
up to use the restroom, dragging Thing #2 with me. She’s eight and still
pathologically reluctant to use the bathroom until she is no longer capable of
physical movement.
While washing my
hands, I noticed her messing with something attached to the wall. The tampon machine. “T, wash your hands.”
“I did.”
“Leave that alone,
you don’t need anything from it.”
She continued to
screw with the tampon machine. Oblivious to the black clad seniors walking in
and out and clucking to themselves in Greek. No doubt speculating that the
obsession with the tampon machine is related to her being not one-hundred-percent
Greek.
“Seriously, T. Let’s
go.”
“Look mommy!” She
triumphantly displayed the quarter, once wedged in the money slot, now freed by
her efforts.
I made her wash the
quarter, and her hands, and we returned to the table. Seconds later, Thing #1
announced she had to use the bathroom. She and her sister proceeded to check
every tampon machine within a fifty-yard radius. At one point, the tampon
quarter was dropped in a toilet. It had become Thing #2’s precious. Something so wondrous, she could
not put it down to pee. Although, in drafting this, it occurred to me she’d
peed right before she found the damn thing in the first place. It’s best not to
think too hard about how it got in the toilet.
The tampon quarter
took several baths that night.
On the way to my
mom’s house (the girls were staying the night with her), Thing #2 asked me what
a tampon was. I promptly told her to, “ask Nammer.”
“Do you think she has
one at the house? So she can show her what one looks like?” my husband asked.
I thought that
unlikely, since my mom hasn’t had a uterus in about two decades.
The next day, I was informed
by Thing #2 that tampons were disgusting. As someone who’s experienced the joy
of menstruation for thirty-odd-years now, I could only agree.
