Sex will get you in the end

The English believe they are a great civilising nation. Having brought tea, cricket and queuing to the masses they declined into post empiricism! Markets in Spain are great places for life, culture and developing tools for conviviality. In the north of Spain we learned the art of civilised queuing the hard way.

Arriving at a stall one asked who was the last in the queue and were told by that person. In turn when the next customer came along and asked it was your duty to indicate your lowly status. I was arrogant enough to believe I had the hang of this and a sufficient smattering of Spanish to pass for a native of Cantabria. One day I sauntered up to the vegetable stall and seeing a gaggle of senoras in front of me called out who is last. There was a pause which stretched into a silence. If there had been a thermometer on this silence it would by this point have been heading south, fast.
Eventually, an ever so polite voice announced that she was the last. The titter that followed this declaration was unencumbered by any muffle.

Yeah, yeah I thought. Is it cos I is Brit? So you don't find many Cantabrians that are 1.8 metres with red hair and the sartorial awareness of a dead camel, what a surprise, just trying to be friendly and fit in!

The dialogue I had just had slowly replayed in my mind, in Spanish, with a slightly heightened awareness.

I had approached a stall where there was an exclusively female queue and asked in my best Spanish who was the last, el ultimo (mixed or masculine) and been firmly and frostily told by the lady in question that she was the last, la ultima (feminine!).

I knew sex would get me in the end.