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Last Saturday morning, my good friend, Silvia, sent her daughter, Alma (10), over to my house.

“Miss Joselyn, my mom asked if she could borrow some powdered sugar from you,” she sweetly asked.

“Well of course, girlie. What is she making you for breakfast this morning?” I brightly inquired, as I struggled reaching for the medium sized canister, sitting directly above my head, inside our semi-organized pantry, without the assistance of my 3-step ladder.

“She’s going to make me some pancakes (also famously known as hotcakes in the Philippines),” she quickly countered, smiling.

“Cool!” I responded somewhat vaguely while handing her the whole container, as my thought swiftly took me someplace in my brain wherein I visualized prettylicious powdered-sugar-coated pancakes heading directly into my taster.

“Uhm, that’s not bad at all,” I thought to myself as if I had just actually taken a bite of that imaginary pancake covered in all the whiteness and sweetness of powdered sugar, just like those New Orleans’ sweet Beignets. Yum!

An hour later, Alma came back to hang out (like she usually does on a regular basis), this time wearing a big upside-down smile on her small face.

“Why are we frowning?” I gently asked her.

“Nothing,” she muttered with now an all-out downcast expression.

Having known Alma’s infamous temper-tantrums (believe it or not, her tantrums half motivated me to learn Spanish quickly), and her rarely-failing tendency to over-dramatize things or situations (trust me, I’ve known this child since she was four), I opted to avoid unintentional magnification of an unknown cause of distress so I asked her instead, as if nothing was amiss, “How did the pancakes taste with powdered sugar on them?”

“I don’t know, she couldn’t make them,” she answered in a tune that told me she just ended the conversation she didn’t want to be part of, in the first place.

So, being the cool and intelligent adult that I am, yeap (winks), I took her too-darn-obvious hint. I literally shut my mouth, and mentally walked out of our what-could-have-been-nice chitchat, without a trace of displeasure. Although (just between you and me) inwardly I said, with a bit of attitude (naturally, as I am just human), "Well, excuse me, then!"

Came Monday morning, Silvia and I were sitting at IHOP (International House of Pancakes) restaurant, jokingly known at home as IHOPE (International House of Pancakes & Eggs, compliment of my husband), for our weekly breakfast rendezvous, when she started recounting the episode at her house Saturday AM.

“Joselyn, sabes lo que paso el Sabado?" (Joselyn, do you know what happened Saturday?)

“No, pero que paso el Sabado, Silvia?” (No, but what happened Saturday, Silvia?)

“No pude hacer pan kes con la harina que me distes!” (I couldn’t make pancakes with that flour you gave me!)

Goodness gracious! I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically (a helpless instant reaction to this side-splitting piece of information, I swear) as I apologetically explained to her at the same time, "Porque le di asucar de polvo, Silvia, no harina." (Because I gave you powdered sugar, Silvia, not flour).

She, too, started laughing hard as she exclaimed, "Ay, por eso!" (Oh! So, that’s why!) And we laughed some more and just let it all out. I didn’t think I could laugh any harder until Silvia added that the reason why Alma got real upset was because she (Alma) did not think I (me, of course) use milk, like Silvia was doing that morning, to make pancakes with that particular flour. In Alma’s eyes, her mom wasn’t doing the whole "pancake-making business" right, so that’s why she was pissed!

How hilarious! Oh, what a scene in the kitchen that must have been!  Gosh, that pulverized form of sugar I gave her was not even close to being flour, except perhaps for its look and texture. And I promise, I did not misunderstand any of Alma’s words as she was speaking to me in plain English.

In fact, when Alma got home from school later that afternoon, we made it a point to ask her for the specific word her mom used for supposedly, "powdered sugar." And, she clearly stressed the word out, "harina" which can only mean "flour" in basic English. Silvia and I now both agree that Alma is seriously losing grip of their native tongue, little by little.