The petrol pump hates me

Our hire car needs petrol. The petrol pumps in Menorca are a little bit different to the ones in the UK in that you have to type in the amount of money you wish to pour into your petrol tank and then the pump will automatically fill up to that level of spend - not too complicated, we've got those in a few places in the UK too, its just that we prefer to do it the hard way by letting the petrol trickle ever sooooo sloooowly into the tank when it gets to £19.95, barely touching the pump trigger at all , holding our breath when it gets to £19.99, then £20.00 and let go, phew.

And then it trips to £20.01, you curse and slam the nozzle back into the pump holder, and it trips to £20.02, you curse again and thump the petrol pump, it trips to £20.03 and you swear you hear it laugh at you - you go into the office and pretend that you really wanted £20.03's worth of petrol all along.

But that doesn't happen in Menorca, oh no, you type "20.00" (shit, what's the shortcut key for the euro sign, anyone, anyone ?) euros and the pump puts exactly 20 euros into your tank, its cheating and its an extravagant use of technology but still, no scratting around for odd cents in your pocket in Menorca.

So I pull up to the pump and I take hold of the pump nozzle and press some buttons on the pump - nothing.

I press a button with a UK flag symbol on it and then the reset button but its still showing the last sale on the pump - Pedro in the office hasn't reset the pump, I glare at him across the forecourt but he doesn't look up so I curse him silently and press some more buttons - still nothing.

A car full of Spanish youths pulls behind my car, they look impatiently at me, I press some more buttons, I've pressed enough buttons on the frikkin pump by now to have written the code for a new 3D Playstation game but still, nothing.

I see movement out of the corner of my eye, the Spanish youths are getting restless, one of them has wound his window down and just as he's is about to shout something sarcastic at me in Spanish I enact "The Englishman Abroad Guide To Making Yourself Understood, Lesson III", I shout loudly at no-one in particular, but in particular I shout at the petrol pump, very loudly, and with feeling.

I call it a fekking useless piece of fekking junk, I call it a bastarding fekking piece of fekking junk thats as fekking useless as my arse at dispensing petrol, I nearly hit it with my fist but pull back from the brink, that would not be the English thing to do.

The Spanish youth says nothing and slides back down in his seat and mumbles something to his Spanish youth friends about "zat eeenglish man eez fekkin cray-zee" and they all nod in agreement - it works every time, avoid confrontation abroad by feigning crazyness, it helps too if you are wearing a white panama hat as I was, Johnny Foreigner sees a white panama and instantly sees "Crazy Englishman Abroad".

Still the pump does not want to know so I slam it back in its holder and still cursing at anyone who looks in my general direction I stomp off to the office to give Pedro a piece of my mind, but theres a queue in the office now, all trying to pretend that they weren't watching me and so I turn on my heel and decide to give the pump one more try.

I tell the pump using extremely profane language that it had better fekkin work this time and I suddenly have a vision of John Cleese whipping his Austin 1100 with a tree branch, I press the "English" button and it clicks and whirrs and its ready for me to tell it how much fuel I want, "Fuck me" I declare, "Halle-fuckin-lulah, now we're getting somewhere" and I type in "20" for twenty euros worth of fuel.

I pull the trigger on the pump and petrol pours into my tank, well thats avoided a confrontation with Pedro then.

Three seconds later it stops.

I call the nozzle a whole new string of obscenities and notice that the car with the Spanish youths in has moved to another pump now where they are all staring straight ahead and pretending that I'm not there at all, but thre more cars are now waiting behind me and so that they don't get any funny ideas about taking the piss I shout in their direction too about what I'll do to the bastarding pump if it doesn't give me some fekkin petrol soon, the one nearest to me reverses out of the way and joins another, much longer queue at a different pump.

I turn to the petrol pump and notice that its dispensed twenty cents worth of petrol - for fucks sake, I must have typed "20" instead of "20.00", what a fekkin stupid way to sell bastard petrol this is.

I look for a reset button, there isn't one and with a heavy heart I realise that I've got to go into the office and pay Pedro for twenty cents worth of petrol before he can reset the pump, twenty cents worth of petrol won't even get me off the fekkin forecourt.

I join the queue in the office with twenty cents clenched in my fist and when I get to the till and Pedro asks what pump number I tell him "Quatro" (I always have to go to pump four as its the only Spanish number I know), he looks at his computer screen then scowls a bit and looks at me again where I am displaying a nice new twenty cent coin gripped tightly between my thumb and forefinger and I nod and say yes, its only twenty cents, can you reset the pump please.

He laughs, takes my twenty cents, laughs some more and resets the pump.
And then laughs some more.
The bastard.

So I walk back to the car and the Spanish people in the queue behind me think I've finished swearing at inanimate objects and they start their car up to move forward, I mouth "fekk off" at them and take the nozzle from the pump again and this time I type in "20.00" and this time finally the pump dispenses twenty euros worth of fuel and then with one last curse at the pump for good measure I have to go back to the office and join Pedros petrol queue for the third frikkin time to pay for what I wanted ten minutes ago.

I tell him "quatro" again and he looks up at me and say "aaah yesss, twenty pleese" and the bastard laughs at me again and then finally I can leave his stupid bastarding petrol station and even though I only know of one other petrol station on the island I promise that I won't be visiting Pedros again.

When I get in the car the wife and two teenage offspring are sat there silently staring at me, in shock.

"Did we lose it a bit there dear ?" the wife asks sweetly

And then I realise that they all had their windows open in the heat and had heard everything, which came as a bit of a shock to them as I normally swear less than our local vicar - they don't know what I'm thinking though.

"No, no my dear" I explain, "Sometimes you have to show Johnny Foreigner that he can't mess about with an Englishman abroad thats all"

And I think they accept my explanation.