I’ll never forget the first time I boldly used “faux pas” in a conversation. I was at a dinner party, seated across from a couple of well-dressed, well-read people. I wanted to make an impression. The opportunity presented itself when someone shared a story about accidentally sending an embarrassing email to the wrong person.

“Well, that was quite the fox pass!” I declared, my voice confident.

The table fell silent for a beat. Then, the polite lady next to me leaned over, smiling. “You mean a faux pas?”

I blinked. Faux what?

Turns out, it wasn’t fox pass at all, but a French term for a social blunder. Great. My attempt to sound sophisticated had backfired, and instead, I had just committed the very thing I was trying to describe!

That wasn’t the only time my misadventures with language got me into trouble. A few years earlier, I had used “indigent” in an essay, thinking it meant “indignant.” The result was a paper where I described characters as “very indigent” when they were actually just mad, not broke. My teacher kindly pointed out that indigent meant impoverished, which explained the red circles around half my paragraphs.

But my favorite blunder was “epitome.” I had heard people say the word and thought it was pronounced exactly as it looked: epi-tome. So, when discussing my favorite movie in front of a large group, I confidently declared it “the epi-tome of modern cinema.”

Cue the chuckles.

One guy leaned over and whispered, “It’s pronounced ih-pit-uh-mee.”

I nodded, cheeks burning, trying to absorb my latest vocabulary lesson.

From that point on, I learned my lesson: never assume you know how to use or pronounce a word just because you’ve seen it written down. Now, before I throw any “fancy” terms into casual conversation, I double-check their meaning and pronunciation.

But I guess that’s just the epitome of learning from one’s mistakes, isn’t it?

Or should I say the epi-tome?

Some years ago, I had the opportunity to spend a summer studying Spanish at La Universidad Católica in Quito, Ecuador as part of my undergraduate program. Although I had studied French all through high school and my first year of college, I switched to Spanish after passing a foreign language proficiency graduation requirement in French. I studied Spanish for two semesters and then I was off to Quito to squeeze a year of Intermediate Spanish into two months. I had the good fortune to live with a warm and welcoming Ecuadorian family in a comfortable home a short bus ride away from the university. They made my roommate and I feel very welcome.

My twentieth birthday happened to fall during the first week I was there. My host mother was kind enough to have a special treat at lunch that day, and her three adult children along with their spouses, her husband, the maid and my roommate all sang to me. When they finished, I said, "Mil gracias. Estoy embarazada." The smiles were wiped from all the heretofore friendly faces and you could have heard a pin drop.

Fortunately, one of her children spoke enough English to know that I had a near-perfect accent but seriously imperfect vocabulary: "embarazada" did not mean "embarrassed" as I thought, but rather "pregnant." She clarified what I said (to me) versus what I meant to say (to them), and all was well...although after that my host mother insisted I go to church with her every Sunday and seemed to watch my waistline rather closely for the rest of my stay.

What a colossal fool I am. Embarrassing myself is one thing but being embarrassed by myself, in the confines of my own mind, is a maelstrom of admonishment and cyclical thinking. What really gets my goat is that despite me remembering the word, the word I just forgot, like an idiot, the word I have been saying wrong for the last thirty-seven years, I can’t even remember what the damned thing is.

It is one thing to forget but, how on Earth do I remember the shame and not the freaking word? I think it has a ‘c’ in it. I think I was using it without the ‘c’. I obviously don’t think about it enough.

“Tom, are you okay?”

Corrinne was looking at me with concern written across her whole face, tight pinched brows, wide eyes, locked in deep connection with me and my furtive glance. Their blue-grey gaze, sharp as marble but fighting for my side, it seems. Her lips, also tight, curl up to one side with a sympathetic twist. How can she be so nice to an idiot like me.

“Hey.” She calls to me again, in a tone that almost threw the tears into my eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m such an idiot.”

“Woah now, where did that come from?” Of course, she doesn’t remember. I probably mess up so often that it is commonplace to her now. “Is this because you were wrong about ‘anticlimactic’ earlier?” I can’t stop the groan that wails out from me, nor my head from falling loose on my neck. “Don’t beat yourself up over that.”

“Now, there’s a notion.” I mumble into my palms.

As I hold my palm shield to my face, I hear a soft whimper from Corrinne. I force my head up to look at her; force myself to see her. She looks away from me and wipes her eyes. Between a sharp, snotty intake of breath, she says, “I’m okay. I’m okay, I just hate to see you like this. You are so hard on yourself, and I just want you to be okay. I want to look after you, but sometimes it gets to me.”

I reach out to her, wrapping my arms around her and remembering about all the times she has helped me. How I always seem to make it about myself. She needs me too. “No no, it’s okay.” I shush her, stroking her hair and gently rocking us back and forward. “I’ll be okay, I promise. What a colossal fool I’ve been.”

I walked into to the room with JZ we were all split up pared at random to face our pasts. I couldn't tell if I was lucky or not to have JZ instead of Lenni, Gabe, or Jensen. Me and JZ were friends but I was always nervous around him, hence me calling him Judgmental. He doesn't know. I don't think he would care even if he knew. I on the other hand do. I am worried he named me "Condesending". Although we are together, we cannot hear what the other is saying to the staff, we can only hear what we directly say to each other. I feel really awkward next to him. When I am with him we are usually with Sophia or the group. I would have named Sophia pristeemed if she was with me. I like that word even though I recently found it is not a real word. She is very put together and seems intimidating at first glance. She is actually really nice. That's why we work when were all together. Don't get me wrong, I am alone with him sometimes, but its only when he is telling me something he doesn't want the others to know. That's when I can forget about his judging eye.

It is time for separation. We walk into 2 separate rooms. I see Eli, my brother, and Alice, my best friend. We wait for the instructor to tell us what to do. We are watching a series of videos and our thoughts are being recorded for our partners to view. I am told that we are getting recorded at the same time as our partners, but with the videos in a different order, then we will be hearing each other's thoughts at the same time. Our responses will also be recorded, but will be ready in a month. We will watch those responses with a new partner who will also see.

I send a glance at Alice and she looks about as confident as I feel. Oh so, so nervous. At least I'm not the only one. I don't know who she is paired with though. I'm about to say something when suddenly I feel my self dragged to a blue matt identical to the ones around me. I had not noticed them before but now all I can focus on is them and my vision clouding, then I hear the infamous tune of "Baby Shark" as I see a colorful picture being painted. Once the annoying busy image is removed I am suddenly overcome by exhaustion but much to my disapproval, a new image still appears. Video after video.

Soon I awake in a another room. With JZ. "I didn't know we were watching together" I mumble. He nods. I don't remember how I reacted. Apparently he likes this girl Allie. I'm glad they lied to us and we weren't watching the same videos. Not that I remember.

I wonder what will happen in a month?