I gave the cashier my name. She said, “Perfect.” Perfect. I have trained with a blade since I was six years old. No one has ever called anything I did perfect. This woman said it about my name. I had simply said “Kenji.” She typed it in and pronounced my whole existence flawless. I stood up a little straighter. Then I handed her my card. “Awesome,” she said. Awesome. The card. The act of paying. She found it awesome. I have crossed a battlefield. I have never been awesome. Today I was awesome for sliding a small rectangle across a counter. I gave her my phone number for the receipt. “Perfect.” Two for two. My name, perfect. My numbers, perfect. I was, statistically, the greatest customer this nation had ever processed. I asked, carefully, if I could also have a bag. She said, “Yes! Perfect.” My REQUEST was perfect. I had not even done the thing yet. The mere intention to hold a bag was, to her, flawless. I wanted to weep. In my country a master may train forty years and hear “adequate” once, on his deathbed, from a teacher who is lying to be kind. Here, a stranger handed me three “perfects” and an “awesome” before lunch, for tasks a child could do, and meant every one. So I did the only honorable thing. I bought a second bag I did not need, just to be told I was perfect again. She said, “you got it!” Not perfect. Just “you got it.” I have peaked. It is all downhill from here. I will treasure the bag forever.