The mystery of “sas’ratou”: the phobias of being an expat. We all have phobias; there is no use denying it. We are born with some and we develop others from all of our experiences in life. We are afraid of spiders, pigeons, darkness, loneliness, etc. As a foreigner here in France, my biggest phobia is not making myself understood or not understanding others. And sometimes it all hinges on a single word or phrase. I misunderstand something or say it wrong and the rest of the conversation makes no sense, to either of us. As with every phobia, this one has several degrees.
As with every phobia, this one has several degrees. 
But with this one, the degree of the phobia you’re suffering from does not depend on you, but rather on the person with whom you are speaking. The first degree is the easiest to cure—the phobia of speaking to commerçants (shopkeepers). Don’t get me wrong—most of them are very nice, but all of that can end very abruptly. When I arrived in France, after a few days, I went by myself to the boulangerie and said, “Bonjour Madame, une baguette, s’il vous plait”, which was answered with the question, “sas’ratou?” From my knowledge of the French language, this was utter gibberish, impossible to decrypt. 
Was she asking me if I wanted some special kind of bread? Was this strange code word one of those unnecessary formules de politesse only requiring a smile and a nod? Or, worst of all, did I have to actually answer her with an intelligent response of my own? What if it’s a yes-or-no question and I answer the wrong way? Or maybe I was just supposed to repeat the gibberish. I was lost. I am not ashamed to say that it took me weeks to finally translate this into ça sera tout? (will that be all?). Since that eureka moment years ago, I have smiled and with great pleasure responded “Oui, ça sera tout, merci.” The second degree of this phobia involves the RATP or SNCF ticket office, where there are invariably dozens of sweaty, angry people wilting away behind you in line when you get into linguistic trouble. The lady behind the window, without really looking or listening carefully, becomes nervous, making you even more nervous. Then she tries to anticipate your question or guess at what you are trying to ask for and it only goes downhill from there. You never get the answer you need or your unused ticket refunded. The third degree of my phobia is any dealing with French bureaucracy.
The third degree of my phobia is any dealing with French bureaucracy.
With this third degree, we’re at the level of frustration and humiliation that causes nightmares. Whenever I am confronted by these situations, I always prepare two versions of my request before I reach the counter (luckily they are kind enough to afford me at least an hour in line to think about those two versions). When you get to the front of the line, you’ll see that the microphones never work right…and when there’s a phone to speak through, that’s even worse. Maybe they just like asking you to repeat yourself. I have to investigate this further. The most annoying aspect of all of this is the unfortunate truth that we have no back-up solution to fight this phobia. There is no anti-linguistic confusion spray that works like bug spray. We are condemned to being polite and occasionally humiliated.
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