Went out and washed the car, something we never did to the Honda, but which our glossy Altima seems to demand. On the way back, they played “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” on the radio, which always reminds me of my Japanese class.

I took Japanese for three years in high school, and am ashamed to say that I have retained virtually none of it–I was a ball of hormones and angsty self-centeredness anyway, it’s amazing I remembered my name, let alone things like the French Revolution and “Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man” and the intricacies of Japanese verbs. Given time and a napkin, I could draw a handful of hiragana and kanji, I know a coupla nouns and adjectives (including “cheap whore” and “stupid”) and the highly useful “Wakarimasen!” (“I don’t understand!”) However, until I die, I will remember the word for “satisfaction” because of Mr. Flood, the teacher, boogieing around the classroom singing “I can’t get no manzoku!”

Little slice of life, that.

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