The Other Annoying Thing About Greek Time

...is that you cannot count on it.

You cannot calculate it by projecting from your many years of experience and observation. That would be a misguided attempt to employ scientific method. Don’t do it! Greek time has nothing to do with science. Or any other method.

It’s not that the Greek tells you one thing while intending another; that would be a lie. He’s not intending to deceive you; the thing to recognize is, he isn’t intending anything at all. A Greek totally improvises his life. He will arrive when he arrives and he hopes that may possibly be about the time he tells you – or not, but since you try to pin him down he feels he has to give you some answer and he tosses out a time that seems to him reasonably plausible.

Do not say to yourself anything like, “Well, let me see… my husband and brother-in-law say they will be back for lunch by noon, so about 12:30 I’ll start cooking and it should be ready about the time they come, somewhere along about 1:00 or 1:30.” That’s the very day they will come home at 12:15, starving.