Today I had one of those moments where I realized I learned something in France. Weeks ago I discovered a boulangerie with the best sandwiches in St Germain. There’s always a line out the door that wraps around the street which makes for a pretty stressful ordering atmosphere. You gotta know what you want (this means in French), you need to be able to point to it in the display case, and you have to have your wallet ready to pay with euros (which can get messy if you’re searching for two euro coins in a sea of euro pennies that no shopkeeper ever accepts but will willingly give). So two weeks ago, I went and ordered un pain au lait avec jambon et crudités. The woman asked me something in very fast French, and naturally I just responded yes not knowing what would happen to my sandwich. Under severe ordering stress, I almost accidently took another woman’s sandwich and got yelled at by the cashier. Apparently I’m a “Mademoiselle” and the sandwich is for a “Madame”. After this experience, it takes me until today to go back. Five different boulangeries in between, I keep getting this question and am still stumped as to what it means. The word sounds like the English word “sauce” so I got excited every time hoping to get some secret French sauce on my sandwich, but each time I am equally as disappointed….until today.
Today, I got the nerves to go get a sandwich. I had this process down to an art. I pushed the door (rather than struggling to pull); I ordered my jambon in perfect French; and when she asked me if I wanted “the special sauce” I had a realization. She was asking if I wanted a napkin. The special “s” word had been there all along! It was a small, silly understanding (she must have been using a shortened slang word for serviette), but for the first time in France I could really feel that I had something tangible to show that I was learning here. And the sandwich was delicious..just as I remembered.
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