Old Maid

Before I begin this my posting today, I think I should make sure everyone knows that my husband is Greek. Like not born there but his parents, aunts and uncles, and some cousins were. So they're all very much into the Greek culture.

Traditionally, in Greek culture, you name your child after their grandparent; so with cousins this can be a bit confusing because you can have several cousins with the same first and last names. Fortunately (for me) this tradition seems to be waining as time goes on, but in Chris' generation pretty much everyone is named after a grandparent.

So how do you distinguish who's who when you have identical names? Well, jobs (ie. John Smith the dentist, or John Smith the teacher?), locations (ie. Susan Jones from New York, or Susan Jones from Alberta?); and in one horrible turn of events, in one family, there is the ugly and pretty (ie. the ugly Christine Stephanopoulos, or the pretty Christine Stephanopoulos?).

Now the unfortunate this about the ugly Christine and pretty Christine is that the ugly Christine really is ugly, and hairy (full side burns and moustache), about 80 lbs overweight, and most importantly a really unpleasant human being; and the pretty Christine, of course, is absolutely stunningly beautiful, gracious, and really and all round joy to be around.

I'm not saying that the ugly Christine doesn't have a reason to be such a nasty person. From what I understand she's had a pretty unfortunate existence; she's probably ten years older than Chris (late forties by now) and she still lives with her parents, the only relationships she's ever had have resulted in men stealing her money, or cars, or in one case, her cat.

So, one afternoon a few years ago, before Chris and i were married, we were at a Stephanopoulos function with the Ugly Christine. She had cornered us alone, and, as usual, she was being very prying and judgemental. Eventually she blurted out "So are you guys going to get married or what?", and I responded, in an attempted at light hearted wit "Oh well, we're not in any hurry, I mean really Chris is the old maid he's already 34!". I immediately felt a sharp jab from Chris, and I realized the woman that I was talking to, who lives with her parents, and was in her mid-forties, was looking like she was either about to cry, or kick my ass. Either way we didn't want to find out. I was screwed, there was nothing I could possibly say to make this better.

Chris cleared his throat, "excuse us", he said, and we hurried to the door, threw on our coats and slipped out into our car, and peeled out of the drive way so fast, our tires were literally smoking. As soon as we rounded the corner Chris has to pull over because we were laughing so hard he couldn't drive. I believe that was the last time we ever made it to the Stephanopoulos household.