Volksempfänger

Ten Minutes Too Long

I had always wanted to date a woman who couldn’t speak. I am sure I am not alone in this sentiment. One day, I got my chance. Almost.

Among the many strange circles I’ve moved through, I once found myself in a group of the aurally challenged. I cannot recall exactly how I arrived there, but I remember sitting in an Ainu restaurant, eating salmon, deer, and potatoes.

She was deaf, attractive, and spoke only when necessary—close enough to my goal. She could speak, even though she could not hear herself as others did. I became aware of this because she distinctly pronounced the “P” in “psychology.” I should have invited her to a screening of Psycho just to hear how she would respond to the title, but I never got the chance to fully test my hypothesis.

I eventually got around to seeing Psycho alone and concluded that it is about ten minutes too long. As the saying goes: “They should have stopped when the wig came off.” I never mastered that phrase in Japanese Sign Language (JSL).

In pursuit of a quiet relationship, I began studying JSL. I can still recall a few “words,” but they are nothing more than relics of the past—fragments with no semblance of structure. I failed at achieving that idyllic life of silence, occasionally interrupted by the word “puh-saicho.” I realize now she may have pronounced the “ch” as it sounds in “chocolate.” I might have interpreted that as an invitation for pistachio ice cream.

Why did I fail? Perhaps I exposed how little sign language I knew by going ten minutes too long—exhausting my entire JSL vocabulary and resulting in a total failure to communicate. You can only go so far with a limited lexicon. Sometimes I tell myself she didn’t go for me because she found a guy with bigger hands.

How did I get here? I intended to write about Nazi propaganda but ended up taking a trip down Memory Lane; the title has absolutely nothing to do with the paragraphs above. I know what Volksempfänger means, even if I cannot pronounce it. I don’t know a lick of German, so I looked it up: The People’s Receiver. It was a low-cost radio developed in 1933. When WWII—also known as World War 11 in some circles—began, listening to foreign radio stations became a criminal offense.