Mr. Greekopoluos liked olive oil

Print the article

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 10:13 PM and is filed under Stories I would be telling if I still taught high school,Characters I've known.

So...I'm waiting in the waiting room, and I smell mouse turds.  Sadly, I know what mouse crap smells like.  My old desk in the teacher's office was a popular mouse hangout.  (It was next to the microwave oven).  Such was life as a Chicago Public School teacher.  I should have picked another desk.  A Greek guy had it before me.  I forget his name.  We'll call him Mr. Greekopoluos.  He always looked so damn comfortable in that corner desk.  I was determined to swipe his desk the minute he retired. 

I'll never forget Mr. Greekopoluos' retirement lunch.  Naturally we took him to Greektown.  When his enormous plate of food arrived, he did something that still, to this very day, continues to boggle my mind.  With his plate clocking in at 5000+ calories, he grabbed a bottle of olive oil, and drowned his food in oil.  The pouring lasted 15-20 seconds, easily adding an additional 5000 calories to the mix.  I'm not exaggerating.  Can anyone give me an explanation of this event?  I'm not trying to be my usual jack-ass self.  Is this a normal Greek thing to do?  I don't think people take my questions seriously.  No one answered my question about off-sides.  I've watched EVERY Pittsburgh Penguins hockey game this season, and I still have no idea what off-sides means.

 del.icio.us  Stumbleupon  Technorati  Digg 

 
Trackbacks
Trackback specific URL for this entry
  • Trackbacks are closed for this entry.
Comments
    Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

    • Thursday, March 22, 2007 10:47 PM Nay wrote:
      I can elaborate on this somewhat. I do not believe this is specificly a Greek thing but more a European thing as a whole. I used to live in a NATO international community and countless times I have observed the very thing. I watched French, Belgium, English, Italians, Germans all do that with olive oil. To them it is almost like salt or butter or cheese to us. So, I decided one day to give this a try...I'm thin and always will be so its not like I really worry about the gazzillion calories....In line at a Nato mess hall I watched each person grab the olive oil bottle and pour it all over their pizza....I did it to. I thought it was good. It must have been the type of olive oil or something....I tried the same thing here in the states, it wasn't the same. Still, when I say it was good, good doesn't mean drink-the-oil good...hopefully I never have to be drinking olive oil type, like the colostomy bag patients do...ewh!
      Reply to this
    • Friday, March 23, 2007 1:01 AM evan wrote:
      off-sides, as it pertains to hockey, is when a player on the offensive passes over the blue line (is that it? i don't watch hockey) into the scoring zone before the puck gets there. it's the dumbest rule in sports. cherry-picking is what makes schoolyard sports so much fun.
      Reply to this
    • Friday, March 23, 2007 2:30 PM johanna wrote:
      I didn't eat anything in Greece that wasn't already saturated in olive oil, but I've never been to any other European countries (other than Spain when I was a baby, so it doesn't count.)

      It seems highly likely that Greece started it and it caught on at some point. One of the more incredible things I saw while I was there was an olive grove that contained over 3 million trees. It was situated between the Parnassus Mountain Range and the Gulf of Corinth, and there was absolutely no way to really capture its expanse on film (although I tried, believe me...) I doubt that many other countries in Europe contain such sites, but I could be very wrong.
      Reply to this
    • Friday, March 23, 2007 7:41 PM Jamilah wrote:
      Mr. Greekopolous???? LMAO!!!!

      I have no answer to your question, even though I do drench my bread in olive oil and a dash of vinegar at Pizza Capri and California Pizza Kitchen.
      And it is good.
      Reply to this
    • Saturday, March 24, 2007 1:14 AM Anjali wrote:
      I used to eat spoonfuls out of the tub of land o' lakes butter when I was little, because I thought it was ice cream, and my parents were too busy freaking out and laughing to tell me it was not in fact ice cream but pure solid FAT.
      Reply to this
    • Saturday, March 24, 2007 9:45 AM John wrote:
      Thanks for stopping by, enjoyed your postings here. I graduated from Thornwood HS (170th and S. Park) and was born in Morningside, lived in E. Liberty and Wilkinsburg before moving out to the suburbs, so I can relate to all of this. After living all of the country, somehow I finally ended back up in NW PA off I-80 in the Eastern Continental Divide.
      Reply to this
    • Saturday, March 24, 2007 2:31 PM Colleen wrote:
      I'm sure it's a Greek & Italian thing. I have seen alot of people do that actually. I NEVER done it though! I know what off sides are in Football. Hockey not so much... I think it has to do with the player crossing the blue line before another one. The one with the puck I think. Did that help any?
      Reply to this
    • Saturday, March 24, 2007 9:39 PM Mirella wrote:
      Hilarious!! Thanks for the laugh!
      Reply to this
    • Sunday, March 25, 2007 11:43 PM Bill Mayeroff wrote:
      Is Mr. Greekopoluos actually Mr. Lazaris? Was he kind of a short fat dude? If it was, he really didn't need the extra oil.

      I had Mr. Lazaris the year before I took your class. He kept jetting off to Greece to see his family for the weekend. He was burning his sick days until he retired, so most weeks, he was only there half the days.
      Reply to this
      1. Monday, March 26, 2007 8:28 AM Old Man Neill wrote:

        that's him!


        Reply to this
    Leave a comment

     Enter the above security code (required)

     Name

     Email (will not be published)

     Website

    Your comment is 0 characters limited to 3000 characters.



      
    Copyright . http://OLDMANNEILL.COM. All rights reserved.