mykonos – Pickpocket Bob Arno

When was the last time you were delighted by a public bus? This one, in Mykonos, did it for me. The driver had turned his domain into a garden with a dozen potted plants and three vases of flowers.

Among the basil, peppers, and marigolds, passengers planted feet with delicate precision while boarding. And if a leg should brush against the herbs, their fragrance, released, would waft throughout the bus. Throughout the front of the bus, at least.

The bus driver smiled permission when I gestured with my camera, and beamed when I included him in the frame. He obviously liked decoration; he was decked out in quite a bit of jewelry, adorned with every accessory a self-respecting Greek man of his age could get away with.

A beheaded octopus drying in the Greek sun.

I can’t remember ever having eaten dried octopus, but I’m not saying I wouldn’t. There they were, looking festive, a row of fresh ones dangling decoratively from a boat’s rigging, like signal flags spelling out a message for dinner.

In Mykonos recently, on a long stroll along the shore, I saw these plump babies strung up, baking in the Greek sun. They had clearly protested their ignoble attachment to a laundry line, given that more than a few had clutched a lifeline with defiant fists.

A boat flies signal flags that spell out dinner.

The sticky-fingered cephalopods had received the ultimate capital punishment—beheading—and for what? Stealing bait? Like a lowlife pickpocket going for our prop wallets, except we throw them back.

Maybe they weren’t destined for food, I don’t know. I’m not one to look at tentacles and think mmm, succulent. There was no one to ask.

Me, I’d put light bulbs in them.

Food greece mykonos

PICKPOCKETS, CON ARTISTS, GANGSTERS, THIEVES, AND TRAVEL

Bus garden

Suckers, high and dry