Goat In The Meze: A farcical look at Greek life (The Greek Meze Series Book 1)

by Katerina Nikolas

  Chapter 62

  Don’t Trust the Collection Plate Condoms

  As Tassia stripped down to her underwear for her wedding dress fitting with her soon to be mother-in-law Mrs Kolokotronis, the older woman could not help commenting, “Your chest is nearly as bigly as mail order Masha’s and you are getting a thick middle Tassia.”

  The older woman stuck a foot into Tassia’s back in an effort to fasten the buttons. Tassia made a frantic dash to the bathroom where she threw up. Mrs Kolokotronis was quick to surmise the problem and proclaimed her delight at becoming a grandmother.

  “We were supposed to wait until the wedding night but Christos was overcome with passion on the night he proposed,” Tassia admitted.

  “You must bring the wedding forward so no one knows yous in the pudding club,” Mrs Kolokotronis advised, asking what Fat Christos had to say on the matter. Tassia admitted she was too shy to tell him, but was over the moon she had got pregnant on her very first sexual encounter.

  “All the book say it’s difficult to get pregnant the first time,” she said, but Mrs Kolokotronis assured her the old rumour only applied if the couple were standing up or in a car. “That explains it then as we made the passion lying down in the garden shed,” Tassia elaborated.

  Mrs Kolokotronis telephoned her son, telling him to come home from the taverna as there was good news to celebrate. On hearing about Tassia’s remarkable pregnancy Fat Christos announced “I knew it was a mistake to use the condom from the church collection plate.”

  Too late he realised he should have feigned delight at the prospect of becoming a father and hurriedly assured his mother and fiancée he was indeed overcome with joy at the news. He wondered if Tassia’s pregnancy would interfere with her running her dead uncle’s supermarket alone when he went into the clinic to have his stomach stapled. He must mention his weight loss operation and get Tassia to hand over the cash for the doctor’s brown envelope the moment the ink dried on their wedding certificate.

  “I ‘ave the busy day tomorrow,” he said, “after my harbour jog the tax inspectors send someone to make the fishing boat a bonfire. It leaves no time to see the Pappas so I go now to church and tell him we marry this weekend.”

  “Kala, if we wait any longer Tassia will be too fat for dress,” Mrs Kolokotronis said as Tassia dashed to the bathroom to be sick again.

  Chapter 63

  A Bigly House Decision

  Adonis drove Quentin and Deirdre back to the neighbouring village of Rapanaki to have yet another look at the ‘Lemoni Spiti’. As they pulled into the ‘Lemoni Spiti’ they could hear the old crone next door, Fotini, screaming loudly. Dashing to peer over the wall they encountered the sight of Fotini hanging on for dear life to the branch of an olive tree. The three-legged wooden olive ladder had toppled over, leaving her precariously caught mid-air with a good half-meter drop beneath her dangling feet.

  “Get over ‘ere quick Adoni,” she screamed “I cannot ‘ang on much longer, my arms is weak. I been stuck here for hours with no malaka to ‘ear me shout.”

  Adonis leapt over the wall and putting his arms around Fotini’s hips he lowered her onto firm ground. “Watch where yous putting your ‘ands yous pervert,” Fotini warned “yous is far too fresh yous young whipper snapper.”

  “What yous doing up the tree?” Adonis asked. Fotini explained she had been peering over the wall to spy on a new set of potential house buyers when the ladder toppled over and she grabbed onto the branch.

  “I no bring any other ‘ouse buyers here,” Adonis said, wondering if he had a rival about to cash in on the commission.

  “K-Went-In this not goodly news, if someone else buy ‘ouse yous no can buy. Let me telephone ‘ouse owner and see if he reduce price for yous.” As he dialled the number of the house owner Adonis confided “Achilles the borrowed builder ‘as lots of ideas to decorate windows with shower curtains, it the bigly new fashion in Athens he say.”

  “This house is already such a bargain. If Adonis can get the price reduced even more it would practically be a steal,” Quentin whispered to Deirdre.

  “We would still need to pay for the costs of the renovations,” Deirdre pointed out, to which Achilles insisted “I comes very cheaply,” surprising them as he had popped up out of nowhere.

  “You really want to buy his house?” Deirdre questioned Quentin, and he admitted he really did, in fact his heart was set on it even though his head considered the downfalls of owning property in this foreign country.

  “Quentin you have spent our whole married life putting my happiness first and if this is what you really want then yes, I am all for it. We will buy this falling down old ruined house and engage Achilles the borrowed builder to make it habitable. We will spend our vacations in our new ‘Lemoni Spiti’ in the village of a radish in Greece. “

  Quentin picked Deirdre up in his arms and spun her round, no mean feat as his impulsive action nearly gave him a hernia. Adonis joined them and told them the new reduced price of the house, and the amount of the deposit needed to secure it.

  When Quentin told Adonis they had agreed to buy the ‘Lemoni Spiti’ Adonis picked Quentin up in his arms and spun him round, forgetting all about his bad back momentarily. Achilles the borrowed builder brashly kissed Deirdre on the cheek, assuring her he would do a bigly good job, while Adonis mentally calculated his commission.

  Chapter 64

  A Sticky Afternoon

  Back in Astakos Stavroula was most surprised to receive an invitation from mail order Masha to join her for an afternoon of pampering at the beauty parlour. Stavroula remembered her cunning plan to lure mail order Masha as a regular customer to her taverna to attract all the men back as customers, and grumblingly accepted the beauty parlour invitation.

  Mail order Masha removed her facial bandages to reveal a pair of lips blown up totally out of proportion. The Botox she’d had injected into her face had deadened all feeling so poor Masha could not even feel the drool dribbling down her chin.

  Mail order Masha persuaded Stavroula to have a wash and blow dry, hoping to acquire her DNA from the hairs in the hairbrush. Their attention was riveted on Bald Yannis as he entered the beauty parlour with a ridiculous new strip of hair reaching from ear to ear across his bald head. He confided in a deep whisper to Evangelina he was in dire need of help to conceal his disastrous hair transplant, but the toupee he had bought was much too big for his head and not the right fit.

  Plonking the toupee on his head Evangelia told him she would cut it down to size to make it less obviously fake. When she had finished cutting and coifing the toupee Bald Yannis dropped the tube of super glue he was passing her to make the rug secure.

  Stavroula’s attention was fixated on Bald Yannis as mail order Masha made a furtive move to remove Stavroula’s hair from the hairbrush. Stavroula was most perturbed to catch mail order Masha in the act and threatened her with a pair of salon scissors as she accused her of stealing her hair to put a curse on her.

  As Stavroula stood waving the scissors she slipped on Bald Yannis’ tube of superglue and landed on mail order Masha, puncturing one of her silicone boobs with the point of the scissors. There was a horrified silence as the silicone boob deflated; leaving mail order Masha decidedly lopsided. Masha grabbed the nearest thing she could find to stuff down her bra to disguise one flat side, which happened to be Bald Yannis’ toupee.

  “Come back with my wig,” demanded Bald Yannis as mail order Masha ran from the salon shoving his toupee into her bra and clutching the hairbrush full of Stavroula’s hair. Stavroula was prevented from chasing after mail order Masha because her shoe was super glued to the salon floor.

  Chapter 65

  Good for Business

  “I never knew a woman could run so fast in such ridiculous stilettos,” Quentin said, watching mail order Masha totter up the street at great speed.

  Mail order Masha arrived home in a furious temper, demanding that old fool Vasilis telephone the police and have Stavroula
arrested for grievous bodily harm for deflating her silicone boob. Vasilis was desperate to calm his wife down and promised to have Stavroula arrested if the DNA sample proved she was not his daughter. In the meantime he appeased Masha by ordering a taxi, at horrendous expense, to take her to the clinic in Athens to have her deflated silicone boob re-inflated.

  To keep her sweet he promised to pay for her to have yet more plastic surgery as Masha was keen to have filler injected into her bottom to make it even bigger. Apparently it was all the rage in more cosmopolitan places than backwater Astakos. Mail order Masha was so happy at the prospect of more body transforming surgery she agreed to take the DNA sample along with her so they would know once and for all if the blackmailing Pappas’ words about Stavroula’s parentage were true.

  Bald Yannis temporarily resigned himself to the loss of his toupee, acknowledging to himself it had looked quite ludicrous and not at all realistic. As he opened the hardware shop he was surprised by the request of those two peculiar American tourists to look at his full collection of shower curtains.

  He noticed the woman Deirdre always appeared nervous around him and decided to amuse himself at her expense by offering to demonstrate his finesse with a chainsaw by giving the hardware shop cat a haircut. “That rude man is quite mad,” said Deirdre running from the shop. “And what on earth was that ridiculous strip of hair on his head.”

  “That must be the new hair transplant he squandered a small fortune on,” Quentin replied “we may be the first people to have seen it so we can spread some juicy gossip around in true Greek style.”

  Bald Yannis soon realised his new hair transplant was good for business by the queue of village men clamouring to buy nails and screws as an excuse to take a closer look at the revolting hair he had sprouting on his head. He even managed to shift a few more hideous old lady dresses to his captive audience.

  Chapter 66

  Goat Loving Malakas

  Fat Christos had a busy afternoon stripping anything of value he could potentially sell from his fishing boat before the tax inspectors sent someone official to burn it. With the help of Prosperous Pedros and Tall Thomas he soon had the new-fangled computer guidance system removed, along with the rudder, the sun canopy, his plastic relaxation chair and all the fishing paraphernalia of buckets, bait boxes and nets.

  “It is the end of an era,” he declared, bidding goodbye to the fishing life and contemplating his new career as a supermarket owner and husband of an heiress.

  By the time the government officials arrived with Fat Christos’ cash bribe for agreeing to the boat burning there was nothing left but the bare wooden bones of the stripped down hull that was worth nowhere near the agreed on price. The Pappas arrived to officiate over the boat burning ceremony, wafting some burning basil as was customary and confirmed the wedding was set for the day after tomorrow.

  Fat Christos was disappointed Gorgeous Yiorgos had failed to turn up to help with the boat stripping as promised. He didn’t know Gorgeous Yiorgos and Petula had suffered an overheated engine just outside the neighbouring village of Rapanaki while on their driving lesson with the goat. They had been forced to abandon the car and hike off in the unseasonable scorching heat wave in search of water to cool the engine, dragging the goat Krasi behind them on a bit of old washing line.

  They spotted the house of Fotini, the old crone mother of Prosperous Pedros, and were most relieved they would soon have a bottle of water and would be able to drive merrily on their way. However they had no way of foreseeing Fotini suffered a morbid fear of goats. The sight of two people approaching her house with a goat in tow threw her into a terrible panic. Fotini barricaded herself into the kitchen, refusing to open the door.

  “Kyria Fotini, please bring us some water we implore you,” Gorgeous Yiorgos pleaded, but his pleas were met with resistance as Fotini started lobbing lemons at them through the kitchen window and cursing them as goat loving malakas.

  Gorgeous Yiorgos telephoned Prosperous Pedros to tell him his mother was having some kind of hysterical fit and needed locking up. Prosperous Pedros pointed out his mother had already locked herself in the kitchen and would surely calm down if they would only remove the goat from her sight. He had no intention of leaving the boat burning ceremony as he was busy haggling with Toothless Tasos over the price of the ‘up for grabs’ sun canopy.

  Gorgeous Yiorgos suggested they try the neighbouring house in their quest for water, exclaiming “This is the ‘Lemoni Spiti’ the Americans buy.” The pair clambered over the wall dragging the reluctant goat behind them and helped themselves to a bucket of water sitting on the abandoned kitchen floor.

  Gorgeous Yiorgos, being ever the gentlemen, suggested Petula carry the water back to the car and hydrate the engine, then drive back to collect him and the goat. Petula was touched he had not suggested leaving her alone in the abandoned old ruined house next door to the deranged old mad woman and set off walking back to the car in the unseasonable sweltering heat wave.

  Returning in the car the inexperienced driver Petula crunched the gears into reverse. The car slipped backwards towards the ruined house and she drove right over the Pappas’ pride and joy, his pet goat Krasi, leaving it in a flattened and bloody heap on the ground. As she and Gorgeous Yiorgos looked in horror at the run-over goat they could hear cackles of delight whooping from Fotini’s kitchen.

  Petula implored Gorgeous Yiorgos to telephone her cousin Adonis as he would know what to do. She was in a total panic over the Pappas’ reaction if he ever discovered she had inadvertently murdered his beloved pet.

  Adonis speedily came to the rescue. He was feeling rather guilty he’d not yet managed a word with the Pappas over the disgraceful way he treated his cousin Petula, but his time had been taken up charming the Americans.

  “Petula you must tell the Pappas the goat wandered off,” Adonis insisted. “I’ll give the goat to cousin Yiota to serve at the taverna. The Pappas wont’s discover the truth if all the evidence is eaten.”

  Adonis grabbed the blood stained blanket from the back seat of his pick-up truck and wrapped it around the dead goat. He passed Petula his hip flask of ouzo to cope with the shock and both he and Gorgeous Yiorgos swore to her no word of the truth would escape their lips.

  Chapter 67

  The Fake Dating Scam

  Whilst Adonis was sneaking the Pappas’ dead goat through the back door of Yiota’s taverna, Thea was once again ensconced in the deckchair in Toothless Tasos’ living room watching another gripping instalment of her favourite soap opera ‘Seven Deadly Mothers-in-Law.’ Now she had destroyed her own television set with a hammer she was relying on the generous nature of Toothless Tasos to facilitate her passion for the programme.

  Toothless Tasos had finally confessed he too was addicted to the soap opera and he immediately went up in Thea’s estimation. She encouraged him to pull up the plastic relaxation chair he had just purchased from Fat Christos’ boat and join her in her viewing. It was pleasant to share mutual observations about the addictive soap opera characters.

  Fat Christos interrupted their viewing by calling round to see if Toothless Tasos would lend him his new very shiny blue suit for his wedding. “I ‘ave lost so many the kilos my cloths hang off me,” he explained.

  “You two look very cosy,” he observed, prompting Thea to stand up to leave, explaining she had a date with Gorgeous Yiorgos that evening. Toothless Tasos was overcome with jealousy at the thought of his goddess out with another man and plucked up the courage to ask Thea to accompany him to the wedding.

  “But what will you wear,” Thea asked “if Fat Christo ‘ave your new shiny suit on? I don’t want you showing me up by turning up in your smelly old fishing clothes.”

  Yiota was busy in the taverna kitchen scrubbing the tyre marks off the Pappas’ goat and the Pappas was in the church counting the cash he had received from officiating over the boat burning ceremony and wondering if he should reinvest it in some fake silver cutlery.

 
; Bald Yannis enjoyed a lucrative day in the hardware shop selling his overpriced goods to his captive audience. He was in such a good mood he decided to indulge Moronic Mitsos by pretending he’d received some written responses to the fake internet advert he had placed in his fake dating scam. Moronic Mitsos was nothing if not highly gullible and he had fallen for Bald Yannis’ fake dating scam hook, line and sinker.

  Although the completely deluded Moronic Mitsos was unhappily married it did not stop him from forever badgering Bald Yannis to set up an internet dating profile for him, grossly exaggerating his own attractions in a bid to lure some wealthy foreigner. He hoped to attract a beautiful and rich younger woman who would fall for his charms and keep him in a manner he is as yet unaccustomed to, in spite of his generous police pension.

  Bald Yannis played along by pretending to knock up a fake dating profile, claiming Moronic Mitsos to be younger, slimmer, handsomer and hairier on his head than in reality, and the owner of a yacht no less, that sails elegantly in the clear blue Greek bays. In reality the yacht is a leaky rowing boat stinking of dead fish and even his own mother would not describe Moronic Mitsos as handsome.

  The fake ad was penned in English, a language Moronic Mitsos had never had a desire to learn, and the trap to make a village laughing stock of him was underway. Moronic Mitsos waited in eager anticipation for Bald Yannis to receive the replies and translate them. Little did he suspect the hardware man was creating the replies himself and trawling the internet for photographs of attractive women to attach to the fake replies.

  Even though Bald Yannis was universally unpopular in the village he attracted quite a large audience of local men in the kafenion who were eager to eavesdrop as he read the fake replies to Moronic Mitsos. Bald Yannis told Mitsos he’d had two replies to his advertisement of a handsome Greek god with a luxury yacht, and he must decide if he liked the look of the anorexic English granny posing in a bikini with wads of cash, or if he preferred the Moldavian gold-digger with voluptuous assets but no cash. He assured Moronic Mitsos there was no rush to decide as there were sure to be more replies the next day, when he had finished penning them.