How to piss off the french and italians

The job I had landed was, a big improvement, no kids. All business, adults and a few Civil Guard intensive courses. So things were interesting the team of teachers too, Irish, Canadian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, the only oddity was the French bosses. A husband and wife team, She the 'Dominator' and he 'mister mouse'. She was one of those women that thought they could boss people around by shoving her bosoms your way and huffing oo'la'la if you complained that the timetable overlapped or one of the other teachers had tried to kill you in the company car by mounting a roundabout. And all this for a thousand Euros a month. Life was pretty good there so after spending the summer in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia I decided it would be good to go back and suffer some more crazy car journeys with the Frenchies. 

 

There were new teacher and old faces 'Oo lala Casper – you are back, no?' After a dry summer, meaning no birds, left me a little pent up, so I decided unwisely to mix business with pleasure. The new Italian teacher had spent some time in Australia so we seemed to get on, not too bad looking in jeans. We met for coffee after work and I used the old 'stretch ya arm out across the back of the seat' trick. And with a few charming words of encouragement, how often do get to meet someone so..urgh I need to vomit. But it worked. We planed a weekend away to Galicia we'd seen the offer in a travel agents, with full board and trips to Santiago, and Rías Bajas we signed up. It was a disaster. Eleven hours on a bus by the time we got there I didn't want to spend anymore time perfecting her English. She still seemed keen. I was reading some J.M. Ceotzee a wonderful South African writer though I find his texts bring my mood down and I guess the opposite would have been better. At dinner we made friends with some older couples and I got invited to play cards with the boys – leapt at the opportunity to get away from Mayca. 

 

I played until the bar closed about 2.30am went back to our room, luckily there were two beds as I didn't want to complicate things by having sex. so I sneaked into the unoccupied bed and slept. In the morning it was breakfast and out for the tour so no time to be on the receiving end of a cold shoulder. I did however have to fake interest in taking posing snap shots of her. My card playing chums were near by so I kept up conversation with them. I had gone right off this bird and I couldn't break up with her mid-weekend I didn't fancy the Italian over-reaction. I thought if I can just make it till we get back to Logroño then I would only see her at work. What a mess.

That night before dinner, we showered, the devil kept popping into my head 'fuck her you know she wants it what's the matter with you. 'I couldn't go through with it visions of the stand up row 'YOU FUCKED ME AND LEFT'. I couldn't leave empty handed so we played Doctors and Nurses – well that's what I'm telling you.

The following week I made myself very busy and had no time to meet for coffee or to come over to her place, the fact that she lived in block of flats directly opposite, in fact from my lounge I could see her room. It all came to a head one day in the staff from, I had made some sexist comments about one of the lady teachers skill-less driving and was verbally attacked. So much so that the Dominator and Mouse Man called me into the office. I bent the truth and said that I wanted to live longer so I wouldn't be driving in the car as the shouting women. I devised cunning plan. the next day there was a staff meeting about an up coming intensive course. I spoke to the Dominator and told her I would apologise to any offended female members of staff. I went one better and bought in a big box of hand made biscuits, presented them on the table inviting everyone to help themselves. 'No it's not my birthday, but there was some misunderstanding yesterday and as a way of apologising without prejudice please enjoy a hand crafted delicacy.' Fuck you all I thought. I made myself look good in the eyes of the boss, so much so that I was then made the driver and on occasions when we had to share the car I would take Mouse Man's. 

 

About three months after leaving Logroño I sent an email to Mayca, to say no bad feelings, I got a two word response 'Fuck Off' her English was improving.