Pas

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “sap/spa/asp/pas/PSA.” Use one, use them all, use them any way you’d like. Bonus points if you use them all. Enjoy!

Je ne sais pas what to write. I suppose that’s the purpose of stream of consciousness writing, right?

I kind of like that Linda included a French word in her prompt.

Please don’t assume that I know French. I took it for a year in high school and recently started learning it on Duolingo. Pas (noun) is a step. Pas (adverb) negates.

Pas — all sorts of phrases run through my head.

• Pas de deux — a dance for two. Literally, a step of two.
  
  When I was in high school, one summer our school arranged some trips to Saratoga Performing Arts to watch the NYC ballet. That’s where I learned what a pas de deux was. I’m not sure I know which ballet it was, though. Was it Swan Lake?
  
  My best memory from all the ballets that summer was watching Edward Villella perform “Prodigal Son.” The fact that I can still remember his name and that performance says something because it was close to fifty years ago. The man had more muscles than I ever remember seeing on any human being.

• Faux pas — literally, a false step.
  
  A social blunder. Saying the wrong thing, or having something come out totally wrong.
  Since I’m telling high school stories, here’s a faux pas that I still remember all too clearly. I was maybe 14. We were in high school band and discussing uniforms. Had we ordered new uniforms at that point? I don’t remember.
  
  When we started talking about what to wear on our feet, the band director suggested overshoes that we could put on over whatever shoes we wanted to wear. It would be cost-effective and give a uniform appearance. You know what I’m talking about, right? Galoshes, aka rubbers.
  I never liked those things. They were hard to get on and hot. I couldn’t imagine marching in them.
  
  I raised my hand and said, “I don’t like rubbers. I don’t like the way they feel.”
  
  The sniggering that ensued started small. It grew and grew until it totally surrounded me. I didn’t know what I had said wrong, but my cheeks burned with embarrassment.
  
  That was the day I learned that a condom’s nickname was “rubber.”

• Je ne sais pas — means I don’t know. It’s a useful term. There are a lot of things that I don’t know. I’m still learning.
  
  Je ne sais quoi — a term I like even more –is something indescribable. I love this phrase, but it captures the feeling I have when my mind is searching for the right descriptor but there isn’t one.

Now I’m off to do my Duolingo. I have an 1134 day streak going — mostly Scottish Gaelic. Today I’ll work on my French some more.