The Maleme team at the Kolymbari Carnival was sporting a slogan which said “Mana thavgo”, which taken phonetically means “Mother, I’m going out”. While intended as a play on words – as “avgo” means egg in Greek, the float featured a large papier-mâché hen with attendants in hen costumes carrying eggs – the phrase is a also a meme symbolising the concern of the archetypal Greek mother for her offspring when they announce that they are going out, e.g. for the evening. (She is also typified by another meme which says: “Mana exei mono mia” – there is only one mother.)

For example this:
“Mother, I’m going out.”
“Don’t forget to take a jacket!” (currently the title of an ERT TV comedy series)

Or the headline on an announcement of bad weather expected for the European basketball championships:
“Mother I’m going out.”
“Don’t forget to take an umbrella.”

During the pandemic a typical exchange might have been:
“Mother, I’m going out.”
“Make sure you wear a mask!”

When the former finance minister Giannis Varoufakis was threatened by a gang of anarchists outside a restaurant in the notoriously rough district of Exarchia in Athens in 2015, his wife , the artist Danae Stratou, famously threw her arms around him to protect him. This resulted in ribald comments on Twitter, including the following reported by Star TV:
“Mother, I’m going out.”
“Don’t forget to wear a Danae, pet.”

The following joke was posted at the humorous site Sapsalis.gr.
“Mother, I’m going out. I may be late”
“Take your ID, there may be elections.”

On the same site another joke, under the heading “The eternal Greek mother”, compared the brevity of greetings in other languages with those of a Greek mother:

“Mother, I’m going out”
US : “See you!”
France: “Au revoir”
Spain: “Adios!”
UK: “Bye!”
Greece: “Where are you going? Who with? Why?
Who’s taking you? When will you be back?
You go out every day. Is this a house or a hotel?
How much money are you going to squander? (Sigh)
You never have time for your parents.
Going out is all you care about.
(Sigh) When I die, then you’ll understand…”

Finally, in 2016 the columnist and now SYRIZA MP Elena Akrita published a sketch on the theme in the newspaper Ta Nea, which was taken up by a number of other media sources including Mononews.gr:

“Mother, I’m going out”
The phone rings.
Mother: Yes?
Daughter: Hello mother. Can you take the kids for me tonight?
Mother: You’re going out?
Daughter: Yes.
Mother: Who with?
Daughter: With a [male] friend.
Mother: I really can’t understand why you left your husband. Such a nice boy,
Daughter: I didn’t leave him, HE left me.
Mother: Yes, the swine. And now you’re going out with the first man who comes along.
Daughter: I’m not going out with the first man who comes along.
Mother: With the second or the third then, even worse.
Daughter: So what’s going to happen, shall I bring you the kids or shall I set myself on fire?
Mother: I never went out with anyone, only with your father.
Daughter: He’s not the one who’ll be babysitting, for God’s sake.
Mother: Are you going to spend the night with him? What will your husband say when he finds out?
Daughter: My FORMER husband, you mean. I don’t suppose he’ll care… From the moment he left the house, I doubt if he’s ever slept alone.
Mother: So you’re going to sleep at the house of this miserable loser.
Daughter: He’s not a loser, or miserable.
Mother: Any man who goes out with a divorced woman with kids is a miserable loser.
Daughter: Look, I’m not going to argue. Shall I bring the kids over or not?
Mother: Poor kids, with such a mother…
Daughter: What do you mean, with SUCH a mother…
Mother: Don’t you shout at me. I’ll bet you shout at that miserable loser like that too.
Daughter: Mother, I’m going to hang up.
Mother: Wait, sweetie. Don’t hang up. What time will you be bringing the kids?
Daughter: I’m not going to bring them, and I’m not going out now you’ve wrecked my evening.
Mother: But sweetie, if you never go out, how are you going to find some nice boy?