for a people who allegedly speak my language i am more often confused by what they say to me than i would have expected.

yesterday i went to fill up our lpg (liquid petroleum gas) container. i won’t recount the “who’s on first” routine i went through on the phone trying to figure out where to take the tank, but when i got to the filling station and told the attendant i wanted to fill the tank he babbled a bunch a stuff at me which gave me the impression i was supposed to fill the tank myself at some crazy looking pump. i asked

“you want me to fill this up myself over there?”

and he responded

hell no! we have trained professionals for that.

now there’s the plain spoken english i’m looking for…