'Oppah!!'

  A single word that inspires so much anger in me now of days. This word didn't have this affect on me until recently. Before this word was a celebration of drinking. Now it was word on my s$%t list.

 I've been living in Greece for the past year and unlike my previous tours of the world, I had no real interaction with tourist until I moved here. Now I understand how annoying they can be. Now I'm not against traveling the world and showing others a part of your culture, I just believe that part of your culture should not be the drunk belligerent side, as some tourist did recently in a pub I frequent.

  The other night my buddy Matt and I had left work and were heading to the quaint and cozy James Joyce to have a few pints of Killykenny and to banter with Tom the bar manager. The JJ is a perfect place to come and relax after having a survived Monday and Tuesday while working up enough courage to make it over Hump Day so you can slide down the backside of the week into the welcoming arms of Saturday.  The night was going smoothly with trickle of patrons coming and going as to be expected on a Tuesday night, everyone lost in their own thoughts or conversations. The peace of the place was gratifying, or maybe it was the buzz from the Killkenny either way I didn't have enough time to contemplate it before it was all shattered to hell by the frenzied and boisterous chants of, 'Oppah!' coming from a group of young tourist that had just entered the bar.

  Now my friends and I are known to cause a scene from time to time, but never have we crashed a place in the fashion that these kids did. The group consisted of roughly 6 girls and 7 boys, one of which bought a megaphone, much to the pleasure of the others in his group. They looked to be about age of just entering college, but not old enough to buy beer legally in the US. Most of the patrons guessed that they were from the US by the accent that was only heard when the 'Oppah's were shouted which were growing louder with every shot or drink that was ordered and downed. And just to make sure that the good name we had made in the pub was completely tarnished, the young guy with the megaphone started running around the bar screaming 'Oppah' to all the patrons who were drinking. After a mere 15 minutes, half of the original patrons had left and the other half were finshing up their drinks so that they could probably meet up with the first half at another pub. This left Matt and I wallowing in the shame and embarrassment as our supposed countrymen were making complete asses our of themselves.

  Tom had now turned off his warm Irish manner and was strictly business with them, every now and then stopping by our table to say a few words like, 'Wha tha fhuck you let 'em our of yer kuntree phor?' or, 'Maybee you kahn tayk yer noo phound friends phor a drink sum ware's else?'. We know he was kidding, but the shame burned us none the less.

  Just as we were at our wits end, two of the girls depart the group and make their way straight for Matt and I. Seeing these two beautiful young women walking towards us would have immediately turned us into drooling and stuttering buffoons trying to impress them with our wit and humor. But since they were apart of the debauchery that was ruining our name as Americans in the place, we stared coldly at them with not a hint of lust gleaming in our eyes. The first one to approach was a small brunette with perky... lips that asked, 'Ello there, you ghot uh smoke?' much to our relief this question was asked in a South African accent, our good names had been cleared.  'I've got some Marlboro Lights, if you are OK with that?' I replied. She didn't mind and she would take two for her and her friend. I picked up my pack of smoke from the table and handed it to the brunet and said, 'Take two and take your friends.' Apparently she didn't catch the hint of annoyance in my voice because she thought I was hitting on her and she told me I was saucy. I'm not sure if I like being saucy, but I do know that I don't like people who call me saucy...