(While our family is German, my sister’s fiancé is Greek and moved to Germany with his whole family due to the Greek economy crisis. They went back to their home in Greece for a month in summer and invited my sister to join them for her summer holiday. It’s also important to note that my sister’s fiancé is very white, blonde, and blue-eyed, and doesn’t look typically Greek at all but rather Scandinavian. The two of them are out shopping. My sister does not speak Greek, and relies on her fiancé to translate or just speaks English. They are currently in a small clothing store. My sister wants to try on some shoes while her fiancé has gone elsewhere.)
Sister: “Excuse me, do you have these in [size]?”
Employee: “I think we do! Give me a moment; I’ll check in the back.”
(She comes back with the shoes in the correct size and my sister tries them on, but they don’t fit very well.)
Sister: “I like how they look, but they’re too narrow at the front and loose in the back. Do you maybe have something similar in a wider cut?”
(The employee is very polite and professional, and proceeds to show her several similar pairs. However, all of them are lacking a specific detail that the other shoe had and my sister liked very much. She doesn’t know how to describe it in English, though. Just then, her fiancé shows up with a few shirts he wants to buy.)
Fiancé: *in German* “Hi, babe, how’s it going? Did you find anything?”
(He kisses her.)
Fiancé: *to employee* “Hi!”
Employee: *to fiancé* “Hello, sir. Did you find everything all right?”
Sister: *in German* “[Fiancé]! I’ve been looking for shoes with [detail], but I don’t know how to say it in English! Can you translate it for me?”
(She then explains in German what she couldn’t say in English. Her fiancé proceeds to translate it to Greek for the employee. When he starts speaking Greek, the employee’s eyes go wide and her whole demeanour changes.)
Employee: *speaks rapidly in Greek, gesticulating wildly*
Fiancé: *answers in Greek, brows furrowed*
Employee: *more gesticulating, bats her eyes at [Fiancé]*
Fiancé: *shoves his shirts into the employee’s arms, says something in Greek angrily, and puts his arm around [Sister]*
Fiancé: *in German* “Come on, honey. We’re leaving.”
(He then pulls her out of the store. The employee yells something in Greek after them. Now outside, my sister asks what happened in the store.)
Fiancé: “When the employee realized I was Greek and you couldn’t understand us, she offered to sell everything to me without tax and receipt. I refused. She then called it a ‘special discount’ and started hitting on me, right next to you. She also said some racist things about Germans being greedy and taking all our money, and that I’d be better off without you. I told her to go f*** herself and her ‘discount.’”
(He looks at my sister and laughs.)
Fiancé: “After all, I love you, and your father is a tax accountant!”
