Move aside, anyone who breathes....nénis coming through!

I've dedicated a few entries to the essence of "seasoned" women of Hungary, and here is another. If you haven't heard before, their technical term is neni. The word actually means "aunt", but it also is a term that is closest to Mrs., or Ms. It's a term of respect. Sometimes my kids even call me Hannaneni. The REAL neni's, however, are the ones you've heard about. They dominate culture here in Hungary. They can be total (I hate to use the b-word, but...) meanies and get away with it easily. These women's bodies are a little rough around the edges these days, but they carry their weight all over town (even if it might take years to get from place to place). When waiting to get on a tram, they will push everyone to get on/off first and nobody questions it. I experienced the perfect display of neni-power tonight on the tram. There was a guy ("that guy", to be exact) sitting in a seat across from me. A hoard of neni's got on the tram at one stop, and one neni happened to just pop up next to the guy and stare at him with her lazer eyes that have the ability to pierce your soul. He didn't seem inclined to move and give the neni his seat, so she stared more. Suddenly, his soul was pierced, and he got up and let her sit down. She caught my eye and flashed an evil smirk that seemed to say something like this: "The nenis strike once again! Should anyone dare to attempt to infringe on our power, the shall die a horrible death. Get up out of my grill, minions!" Aside from this heartwarming story, everything is good! Three day weekend coming up...woo hoo!