It Ain't Workin'!

On our recent trip to Sovietsk I had the opportunity to sit down and play guitar with some of the boys. (The girls play, too, but this was intended to be male bonding time.) One of the young fellas asked me to show him how to play a C chord. I put his fingers in the right spot and told him to press down and then strum. He did okay at first but before long his fingers got tired and the chord started to break down. Soon it was just an atonal plunking sound. He then looked up at me and said in Russian, "IT AIN'T WORKIN'!" Before I knew it I was laughing so hard I could hardly breathe, and then our interpreter started laughing, and soon the aspiring guitarist was laughing. I couldn't explain then or now why it was so funny, but it was positively hilarious. There's not really much of a point to this story other than it was good to share a moment of levity with a kid who really needed one. My young friend had some traumatic experiences that led him to living in the orphanage and it was good to share that moment of laughter with him.