Something rather embarrassing happend to me last week. It was in the morning and I drove from the city to the office, because I was in the city to buy new contact lenses. I stopped at a big crossing on a turning lane and suddendly the car was slightly bucking. I tried to accelerate and … nothing happend.

Imagine a really big crossing, with many lanes and many, many cars, because it was 10 am.

As I said, it got green and my car wouldn’t move. To my surprise the cars behind me waited patiently and didn’t honk. It got red again and I really didn’t know what to do next.

From the car behind me two men left their car and asked friendly if they could help me. You have to know that since the last day the fuel gauge was blinking. But I couldn’t believe that this should be the reason that the car wouldn’t work. I always thought that when the fuel gauge starts blinking, you have at least 10 liters petrol left in the tank. And we are driving everyday no more than 3 kilometers to the office and back. It seemed rather unlikely that the petrol was the reason that the car didn’t work anymore.

The two men started to master the whole situation immediately. They made the other cars drive around my car and then they pushed the car on the traffic island next to the turning lane. Then they took me to the next petrol station, where I could buy a tin can with petrol. Nice as they were, they had waited for me and we drove back to my car.

There they tried to get the petrol into the tank, but the filling neck of the can was too short and the petrol ran down the car instead of running into the tank. Because they were working close to the crossing, one of them drove back to their office to get a funnel. The other man stayed with me and we had a nice chat about the beautiful landscape in Australia.

The funnel helped and they managed to get the petrol in the tank. To my great joy, it was really only the petrol and nothing else. I wouldn’t have known what to do if it hadn’t been the petrol. I have no mobile phone and I don’t even remember the phone number of the office.

My two knights in shining armour put the tin can in the car boot, said it was their pleasure to help me, waved me good-bye and I drove happily to the petrol station.

I think, if this had happend in Vienna, there would have been a honk concert behind me at the crossing and if the Viennese men would have been so knightly, I dare to doubt. The Australian might be slow and annoying drivers, but they are really nice and helpful. Three cheers for my two knights in shining armour!