Contacts vs. Context (and "HA?!")

One of my co-workers — and yes, even though I'm technically the boss, I will always call them co-workers — walked in and handed me a message. Someone had called looking for me about our bakery in Daly City. The bakery number was given to her by my partner.

I asked her about the context of the call. She looked at me and said, "Her contact numbers are there..." I had to laugh. Context. Contacts. Eh, Close enough.

This is daily life with my wife and me. I'll say something and the first words out of her mouth? "HA?!" If you're Pinoy, you already know. It's one word but it means so many things. In this case: "What?! I either didn't hear you or I don't understand."

It's the little things — the lost-in-translation moments, the words that almost sound the same but don't quite land — that make this life together funny and real. We're always somewhere between two languages, two cultures, and two completely different ways of hearing the same sentence.