ONE OF THE dumbest things I've ever heard is "If I had it all to do over again, I wouldn't change a thing." You talk about your lack of imagination – to say nothing of hygiene. Look, I love my life. I haven't been exactly all the way on top of my game lately, but still I think I'm generally as happy if not happier than the next guy. I've done a lot of Things, including laundry, love, learning, and looking at ants. Once I jumped out of an airplane.

I hit one home run. I've pitched out of jams, moved runners over ... Two books, four records, I made a steel drum, and I'm still alive, still playing ball, music, still doing the things that I love to do. All is well, in other words, and you know what? If I had it all to do over, I would change every ... single ... thing.

If the butterfly wing-flap theory flies, they would all be moot points after the first decision I made (to cry, probably, or to stop crying) set the wind blowing a whole different way. However, for the sake of speculation: I'm a writer; I'd be a truck driver. (Not that it'd make a lick of difference to you, because, being a Saints fan instead of Niners, I never would have moved to San Francisco.)

Coffee? Cream and sugar.

Bacon instead of sausage. Or maybe I'd be a vegetarian. One thing – I'd still hate mayonnaise. That's biological, like ethnicity, gender, and Ohio. But you get the picture. Why do anything at all the same way twice?

CHOIR OF ANGELS: Because what if you got it right the first time?

If I got it right the first time, I'd hope to get it wrong the second, and vice versa. Actually, the purpose of life is not getting it right. The purpose of life is getting it, period, in the sense of witnessing, you know, seeing shit (or smell-taste-touching it) and going, "Oh."

You always knew the meaning of life would finally be revealed to you some day in Cheap Eats, didn't you? Well this is that day. Yep, the meaning of life would best be summed up as, oh. I'd of told you sooner, but I had to work out the details. Then too I was on the wrong track myself, for some time, trying to decide between hmm, hot dog, and dang.

Speaking of which, you should have seen me yesterday in Japantown, walking around in triangles between Benkyodo, Miyako Sushi, and a bowl of fried chicken soup at a noodle joint between the two and across the street. The street being Buchanan, between Sutter and Post, which is not open to traffic, so at least I didn't have to worry about getting run over by a car. I can't tell you how many times that's happened to me while trying to decide where to go for lunch.

I decided on Benkyodo, and I'm embarrassed to admit I arrived at said decision through the use of logic, not because it was the first place I saw. See, I knew I was having soup for dinner, so I ruled out the noodle joint. And my wife's a huge sushi fan, so I figured I'd file Miyako for a future dinner date.

Dang. Hot dog. Hmm, so what's going to be my philosophical take on a sliced-bread turkey sandwich with iceberg lettuce, onion, and tomato ($3) in Japantown?

I know: that the food was not the point. The point of Benkyodo is these Japanese confections called manju, or mochi. Little doughy dumpy doo-dads with sweet bean paste centers. They make them there, and have been doing so since 1906.

They also have a cute little lunch counter, serving cereal or doughnuts for breakfast, sandwiches, hot dogs, and hamburgers for lunch. But there is no grill or griddle, so I hate to think where and if the burgers get cooked.

In the microwave?

There's a hot dog spinner-ma-hicky, and a steaming tin of what I guessed to be soup. But when I asked what kind of soup they had the woman went and looked on a shelf and said, "Chicken noodle." And when I looked where she was looking I saw a case of cans of Campbell's. So ... OK, I passed on the soup du jour.

Maybe that was chili in the soup bin. If so, I shoulda got a chili dog. Probably shoulda got one anyway, but I opted for dessert instead, sweets being the point of the place.

I got a strawberry mochi for a buck, and a pancake mochi for 75 cents. And I'm not much of a sweets guy myself, but these were some pretty sweet sweets. The strawberry one featured a real live strawberry surprise in the center, and the other was a cute little pancake sandwich, with black bean paste in the middle.

Would I go back? No, but only because I've already been. You?

Benkyodo. 1747 Buchanan (at Sutter), S.F. (415) 922-1244. Daily, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Takeout available. No alcohol. Credit cards not accepted. Wheelchair accessible.