Dancing on the Tabletop with a Married Woman Does Not Earn Points With the Greek Mafia

I'm back from Greece after an indescribably fabulous week which culminated in a party in my city for Designer and his mother's birthdays this past weekend. I did not think about Ex once, which was a welcome relief. I don't feel rested in the least, but it was utterly worth it. I had planned on posting at least every other day from Greece, but was unable to follow through for a variety of reasons.

First of all, when you log on to Blogger in Greece, everything on the page is in Greek. I could not for the life of me figure out how to change the language back to English, so I just gave up. Actually, chalk it up to sheer laziness because every day I lounged at the pool, drank wine with my friends, and allowed my good intentions to float away on the Mykonian breeze.

Secondly, there's a sense of impossibility in attempting to capture the essence of the trip, Designer's party, and the amazing people who flew all the way there to celebrate with him. I feel so honored to have met some of the most brilliant, creative people I've ever known and to have had the chance to get to know them. It was truly a fabulous collection of people.

However insurmountable the task to describe the events, there are a few funny stories that just have to be told.

To grasp the craziness of this trip, you have to understand the schedule. Generally, you wake up around noon, go to the pool or beach, and begin with some lunch, mimosas, and chat with your friends. Around 7:30, you return to your hotel room, nap until 10, then ready yourself for dinner around 11:30. Dinner ends at about 2 am, then you dance until 7 am, go back to sleep and do it all over again. I believe that this is a regular schedule for all in Greece, at least during their 6 weeks of tourism in which they make all of their money for the year.

I'm pretty sure at this point that my liver is laying somewhere in an alley in Mykonos, crying out for mercy. I'm also pretty sure that I'm not the only one whose liver absolutely forbids them to ever return to Greece.

One evening, a group of about 35 of us went to a beautiful outdoor restaurant situated right on the water. We were all forewarned that the music would gradually become louder and that by the end of the night, everyone would be dancing on the tables. I frankly didn't believe the notion, but indeed, that is exactly what transpired.

After a wonderful dinner replete with many bottles of wine, big plates of fresh watermelon and ouzo showed up. Matthew, one of the most entertaining people in the party, proceeded to drink his way into utter oblivion. He, being one of the few straight men in attendance, was entertaining everyone with his grabbing of random women to dance on tabletops with him. Unfortunately, Matthew grabbed the wrong woman to dance with him toward the end of the evening. Correction: toward the beginning of the morning, since it was about 4 am.

He drew out a woman from a completely different party than ours, not realizing that she was not part of Designer's group. The two of them were dancing quite fabulously on top of one of the tables when Matthew lost his balance, grabbed the woman for support, and proceeded to take the two of them down. They fell onto the floor, knocking over all of the chairs within a 10 foot radius, both laughing hysterically.

As we all looked on giggling (because they weren't hurt), a quite intimidating looking man materialized out of nowhere and grabbed the woman, yanking her to her feet. It turned out that the woman was married and her husband had observed the entire debacle. To say that he appeared livid would be a gross understatement. Matthew is a really good guy, so he wouldn't have undertaken any of these actions had he known she was married and not part of our group. Or had he been sober. Or perhaps both.

In any case, the woman's husband was displeased to say the least. His wife walked back to her table while the husband took a swipe at Matthew's chin, just barely grazing him. Matthew apologized profusely and the husband growled something in Greek, which I think might translate to, "I'm in the Greek mafia, motherf*cker, so if you ever touch my wife again, you'll have free swimming lessons with a cement kickboard." But that's pure speculation. (And as a disclaimer, I don't know if he was in the Greek mafia or if such a thing even exists, but he appeared to me as the Tony Soprano of Mykonos.)

The next day, we were rehashing the prior evening's events. I jabbed Matthew in the ribs and said, "You were so funny last night when you fell off the table!"

"What? I didn't fall off the table. What are you talking about, Almost?"

We ended up having to retell him the story, of which he had no recollection. He looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, "Hmmmm. I was wondering where all of those bruises came from."

Uproarious laughter ensued from all of us, and then we toasted Matthew's near-miss with some champagne.

That is just one of many stories from our trip, and more will come in future posts, but cheers to you, Matthew. And may you get your luggage back soon, since you've had no clothes for the past 2 weeks. At least you escaped the wrath of the Greek mafia and looked fabulous doing it.