The $40 dollar woman

Ok I don’t even know how to explain this one but this was an incident the minute we stepped into the store. It all started with the obsession to buy oil painting of Mykonos. It’s beyond me how I was going to take theses home.

We stepped into the store and immediately noticed the owner i.e. the $40 dollar woman chewing away as usual. Every time we see this woman she’s chewing on something. A person can’t possibly be chewing on gum for this long. Were assuming maybe she’s chewing on pieces of food left in her mouth from the night before or her gums.

Anyway we ask her for the price of a small painting and she chews at us and responds 15 Euros. Then we ask her the price of a slightly bigger painting and she chews at us and then responds 40 Euros.

My friend decides to buy the 40 Euro painting. We go to the counter to face the music. My friend pulls out a 50 Euro note to pay for a 15 Euro oil painting. The woman immediately starts panicking and screams “No money… No money”.

I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on. For a minute I thought she thought that we were robbing her or something. In confusion my friend then decides to pull out a 20 Euro.

For crying out loud what type of sick person doesn’t pull out the 20 Euros beforehand and save us the whole incident. After handing the money over to the woman she starts to panic again by scream “No No 40 Euros, another 20”.

For crying out loud the woman doesn’t even know the prices for her paintings. Every time we asked her for a price she would wander over chewing in her mouth of course looks at the painting for 40 seconds and then makes up a price for it. What the hell is that about?

Anyway finally we try and explain to her that the smaller painting we wanted to buy she quoted 15 Euros and not 40 Euros. She looks at us like we are a pair of lunatics trying to rip her off and then she starts to smash her hands to her head like 4 or 5 times saying sorry sorry.

I was biting my lips to step outside to burst into tears from laughing. The woman is totally insane. This whole Island is full of weird locals.