Faux Pas

Our word for the day is faux pas.

Faux pas is when an unknown number sends you a message at 230pm, "We have class today." It's when you reply, "Nah. Classes were suspended at 1pm, bading. Pero ngarag ever pa rin ako kc wa pa submit ng paper ang mga lecturer. Afraid."

Faux pas is when a while later, you get the reply: "We can't afford to skip any more classes." And in your muddled little head, you assume this is from someone you just agreed to give cabfare to since there were no jeepneys at the height of a transport strike. So you reply in such uncouth gushing language, "Oo na bakla, bibigyan na nga kita ng cabfare, sige mag-kabey ka na papasok."

Faux pas is when you open your inbox and the message proclaims, "This is Your Grad Skul Professor." Clouds part, jaw falls to the ground, thumbs type in, "Yes, mam, papasok na po."

Faux pas is when you scuttle to your seat in that table at 3pm. The Professor proceeds to give you an update on what has happened in class thus far, and then smoothly narrates a little anecdote about that time when she was young and still quite new at playing her new role as the diplomat's wife, that time when she was still naive about which fork to use at a dinner with the genteel man she had mistaken to be somebody else, and she picked the wrong fork and that picked the same fork she did, and then later discreetly discarded it for the right one, and she followed suit. He never said a word about it, and she never said a word about it.

We never said a word about it. Although now, I don't think I can look her in the eye without thinking that I once offered her cabfare.