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Music to listen to while you read:The General Specific by Band of Horses

I’ve never really liked taking public transit. In particular, the TTC. There isn’t much to like about grumpy bus drivers, pushy passengers and black tar-like substances smeared all over the velvet subway seats. In my past life, I would take public transit and people would think I was such an environmentalist. I’d smile and agree with them. Secretly, I just couldn’t afford the gas for my rice rocket.

I recently bought my dad a Metropass for Christmas. He instantly turned stone-faced and didn’t say a word. I thought it was the Tim Horton’s coffee acting up again. He shoved it into his vest pocket and that was that. Oh well, I thought. I guess he’d rather I got him a car. But later, he told my mom that I was his favourite son. He was so excited, he asked her to go with him to Islington station and buy one for herself so that they could go downtown together.

My dad’s generally a very outgoing guy. He’s always got a smile on his face. He spends 15 minutes each day combing back the silver strands of hair atop his head. He wears a neat charcoal vest outside his white dress shirt that he tucks into his slacks. This outfit has outlasted the Bee Gees, and it’ll continue to be his outfit until well past the rest of this decade.

Often, my mom has confided in me that she thinks he’s having an affair. Suspicions, but nothing concrete. On the days that I take my mom to the doctor’s she tells me everything. Not that she cares too much, but I think the drama is necessary for a pair of retired and restless old folks.

Nearly 90 and he’s galavanting downtown to meet up with those harlots, she calls them. Old Cantonese women who share an intimate bowl of Wonton noodles over a boiling pot of tea. Likely they convene at New Ho King, she reports. She suggests we hire a private investigator, but instead an idea comes to her. She’ll surreptitiously follow him on the GO bus. He won’t suspect a thing!

The problem with traveling with my father is that he panics a lot. It is a natural recourse to panic when you are in a foreign country and everyone thinks you are insane. Not speaking the language is also a setback.

When you travel with my father, either on horseback or otherwise, there are a few things to remember.

1) Never let him out of your sight. For an old man, he is readily sprinty.

2) Do not be the chump left outside the subway doors as the chimes go off. He won’t wait for you, so best that you hurry.

2) Wear running shoes (see #1)

This is not a stroll in the park, with my dad. There is a goal, and a mission. We are here, we need to get there. The subway waits for no man, and neither will he. If those subway doors close and we are not on the inside, you are a chump and will likely be disowned shortly.

I’ve thought about this strange unrest with him. It’s more common with immigrants and older people, but they always tend to push and shove their way onto streetcars, subways and restaurants. If you arrive at Spadina station, and line up for the streetcar, my dad will wave at you from the front of the line and say that you’re a moron for waiting that far away. After all, the doors are right here!

Amid the embarrassment of having to cut the line and apologize to other people patiently waiting in line, I join my father at the front. He whispers quietly to me that all these other people are suckers and they will likely die suckers. So get with the program, junior! Yessir!

Of course, we’re joined at the front with all the same sorts of characters. They chatter away in Chinese and I stand by my father, blocking the way to prevent anyone to get in front of me, as instructed.

I guess they’ve all grown up in a place where if you weren’t at the front of the line, you were either going to starve and die or be ridiculed for the rest of your life. Living in shame, is just not worth the wait.

For us Westerners, its perfectly sane to take things easy and if we miss that subway, yes it totally sucks, but there’ll be another one shortly. For my father, if you miss that subway, he’s going to take his slipper off and beat you over the head with it. Fair enough, I suppose.

So my mom tried to go with him on the various GO buses, streetcars and subways that it takes to get downtown from Mississauga. She told me that she couldn’t keep up with him, and last saw him at Union Station waving her to stay back 15 feet in case one of his friends saw him. In my youth, I can remember my older sister adopting this same policy.

They would tell me, “Stay back about 5 feet. If my friends come, I’ll say the code word and you scram.” That was about when I was 10 and my sister was 16. So her teenaged friends were not interested in a tag-along little brother. My only restitution was a bag of chips and a dog-eared Cosmopolitan magazine which I read cover to cover, relentlessly searching for the crossword puzzle. I never did find any, but I did learn a lot more about how to tie scarves.

My mother eventually gave up on her investigation and considered the case closed. He is definitely having an affair, she concluded. I continued to smile and let her rant. They’ve been married for close to 50 years. I have no doubt nothing remains in that relationship but a quirky companionship and a common reverence for what they’ve accomplished. Maybe someday, I will dust off my own runners and go with my father on his two and a half hour journey from the mundane suburban to the bustling Chinatown. At any rate, I suppose I could be his wing man.

Generally, colonoscopies do not sneak up on you. You could probably see one coming from a mile away. They do have a reputation with a certain amount of silent horror as the long snake-like tube with the headlight-tipped end approaches closer and closer, aiming to penetrate your most sacred orifice. If you don’t know what a colonoscopy is, let me just say that there’s a giant machine, a 20 foot tube and a large glass jar involved.

I took my father to the doctor’s today to provide manly comfort, while he had this procedural examination. Sitting in the same room as this went on, had me wince, recoil in horror, and feel more empathy for a man that I’ve only been able to communicate through a series of grunts and hand gestures.

In all sincerity, I told the doctors this was required as a routine check up. His blood pressure was a bit high, so they opted not to administer the sedatives and gave me a heads up that there would be slight discomfort, to say the least. I will spare you wonderful readers the gory details, but you should be confident in knowing that, should you ever be presented an option, take the freakin’ sedative!

To date, I’ve heard my dad swear a lot. Usually to me, or any other unfortunate child that didn’t find his missing left slipper in 10 seconds or less. But I think in one hour, he managed to break all those records and called the doctor who was busy jamming that long tube up his… colon, various wretched things; things not even I could translate.

Seeing this I felt sorry for him immediately. Poor guy. Eighty-eight years old and having to have this done to you. So close to living a full life, free from anal penetration. I know that is my goal (as it should be yours). And then I got home and talked to my mom. It turns out that my father, in fact, volunteered for this.

So here we go. Try to follow along, yes?

My dad loves Tim Horton’s. He loves the coffee so much he will suffer for it. He is of course, lactose intolerant as are most Asians. But he will be damn to admit it! Defying all symptoms, signs and advice from those around him, he refuses to admit that he is lactose intolerant. He is adamant, that there is something in his colon that is preventing him from enjoying his warm, tasty, creamy coffee. “One more sip, and then to the washroom,” such is the mantra of those who suffer from lactose intolerance.

We told him about this wonderful invention called Lactaid™ pills that he could take with his coffee, but no! That is a waste of money! What about coffee with no cream? No! That is complete bullshit! I will have cream in my coffee, thank you very much.

He instead heeds his backstreet Mahjongg crew’s advice. What did they recommend? Why, a good ol’ colonoscopy of course! Upon hearing their testimonials of how amazing it was, he was set on it. Typically, you would not hear the words “amazing” with “colonoscopy” but in this circle of friends (though I would use that term loosely), this was the case.

I kept thinking, perhaps they had actually confused “enema” with “colonoscopy”. The only difference of course is that with an enema, stuff comes out and the law of nature is preserved: that particular road is a one-way street!

To top it off, they told him it was free. Free! Imagine that. And so now, I understood why he was so amazed that there was no line up for this at the doctor’s office.

“We have to get there early, in case there’s a line,” he said. Why on earth would there be a line-up for one of these? I wondered. Well, of course — because its free! Why wouldn’t there be a line-up?

My sister had tried to convince him not to do it the day before, and warned him how painful it would be, but true to his nature, his only response was, “Even if its that bad, at least it was free.”

Ironically, his colon was cleaner than a test-tube. I am sure that he will head downtown tomorrow to knock out that guy’s teeth who told him how amazing this procedure would be, right before promptly heading over to the local Timmy’s and ordering a medium double-double.

My sister’s wedding took place over the past weekend. The weather was barely accommodating; eager to move onto Autumn it blanketed the scenery with a thick fog and mist. We seated the guests outside the country club in neatly aligned rows of white plastic chairs. The gazebo was ornately decorated and a white fabric laid upon the aisle of grass between the bride’s side and the groom’s side. She looked beautiful in a white gown, coming down the aisle with my father accompanying her on the left. His lips were pursed and his eyes stayed focused. Certainly he was feeling unfamiliar with this customarily western tradition. Thick bifocals sat crookedly on his face. Their pace was deliberate and came at measured beats while a trumpeter played the processional music.

The ceremony was delivered in English, though they exchanged vows in Vietnamese. I couldn’t catch much of it, as I was sure they were speaking formally to each other. I could only make out the last sentence where he said to her, “Anh yêu em” which according to Babelfish means, “Big brother loves little sister.” Seemed a bit odd, but I’m sure a lot got lost in translation.

The wedding proceeded with cocktails where I was MC for the evening. I was originally supposed to translate for my Vietnamese counterpart and we both had our scripts. While I continued to read from my copy, my Vietnamese counterpart decided to deviate a bit from the script so then suddenly, I was no longer translating, I was just reading what was written, which may have confused anyone in the audience that could understand both English and Vietnamese. I’m sure it was fine but I really had no idea what he was going on about. Thus, I realized a couple things about being an MC: 1) Things never go as planned, and 2) always have a couple of shots before going up to the podium.

The highlight of the entire night was when my sister’s new husband decided to dedicate a song to my sister, and then proceeded to rock out with his band. It was pretty much awesome. He performed two songs with the band and it inspired me to learn to play guitar and sing in Vietnamese to my bride, whoever she ends up being — even if she turns out to be a Polish mail-order bride no doubt, she will love it!