What is it with people in Greece and slamming doors? Ok, so maybe this problem isn't indigenous to people in Greece, but my U.S. experiences were usually related to doors that were difficult to shut, or slammed naturally if the person didn't pull the door gently shut behind them. Well, plus teenaged angst, the necessary exclamation point to an enraged teenager who wants to make a point (of course that was NEVER me).
But here in Greece, no matter where I've lived, people have slammed doors that didn't need to be slammed to close properly. I suppose I am particularly sensitive to it in our apartment here, because our apartment is right next to the outside entrance door, and the hallway it opens to is a veritable vortex of ringing, cacophonous acoustics. You can speak in a whisper in this hallway and the words travel loudly to every apartment in the building. Thus, if you let the entrance door slam shut, or your apartment door slam shut, everyone hears it, in screaming, ringing vibrations. The entrance door will slam naturally on its own, but the force of the slam depends on the force of the person opening the door, and how they open the door. Some people let it close almost quietly, while others let it slam with the power of Zeus' thunder. Now the apartment doors in this building are so positioned that they cannot slam, they swing open, not shut. So you really have to put some effort into it in order to SLAM your door shut. Either folks in this building have some excess aggression they need to release or they were never taught any manners. Perhaps it is a combination of both.
All this is worse for me because I am one of those people (well, perhaps all of humanity?) who cannot stand the sound of a door slamming. It is one of my greatest pet peeves. Every time I hear a door slam shut, it distracts me from whatever I am doing, and if I am reading or trying to write, that is particularly annoying.
One other tidbit of annoyance - the person who buzzes the top apartment on the buzzer list, regardless of whether or not that is the apartment of the person they are coming to visit. It just so happens that our apartment is at the top of the list, and so it happens now and then. And the buzzer isn't just any old buzzer, it is quite loud and always scares the bejesus out of me, even if I am expecting it. My husband is more tolerant of this, he will let the people in the building. But I am more inclined to ignore it, and if I knew they would understand my English (even though I have learned to swear in Greek), to pick up the speakerphone and tell them to screw off and buzz the right apartment. This would be particularly effective if it was raining.
Ah, the joys of life in Greece. Ain't it grand?
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