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Generally, colonoscopies do not sneak up on you. They are very much not like, Oh, hello. When did you get here? Colonoscopies do enjoy 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!

Living at home has brought to mind a few things; certainly things that I have too soon forgotten, since the last time I lived at home, but nonetheless, I need to document these in case, I ever, in all my infinite wisdom, decide that living at home “seems like a good idea” ever, ever again.

There are questions you need to ask yourself from time to time, in times of trouble, or in times when your mom walks in on you making kissy-face noises on the phone, or just in times of pure unadulterated chaos when the fire alarm goes off and for the love of God, it just won’t stop. Don’t find yourself in these situations and not know what to do.

ITEM 1. When your mom says, “Yes of course I know how to make spaghetti” the first thing that should come to your mind is, “Did I manage to hide all the cans of tomato soup?”

Perhaps more wistfully than anything, I always end up buying all these jars of Prego™ just hoping for the off-chance that maybe one day she might use that instead of a can of Campbell’s® Tomato Soup to make the sauce. Dare to dream.

ITEM 2. When paper towels go on sale for 45 cents, it can only mean one thing: It is time to rid the world of it’s supply of paper towels. No matter how daunting that task may be, we will single-handedly do our best to own up as many rolls of paper towels as humanly possible, and as luck has it, they’re all Equality™ brand.

Never mind the fact that Equality is synonomous for sand paper, the damn thing is on sale for fourty five freakin’ cents and tomorrow it might go up to 99 cents and then what will we do? What, pray tell, WILL we do? Nothing. There is nothing we can do. We must buy it now, and buy it good. Drop those chopsticks, we’re going to Food Basics.

In order to defeat their clearly unreasonable, 2 packages per family limit, we need reinforcements. Call your brother, get the van; call grandma, call your sister, and your aunts and your uncles and your cousins, call them all in.

Like a pack of hill-billies, we’ll load up in the jalopy, and scoot on down to the nearest Food Basics just to load up on paper towels. Two packs per person. And remember, we don’t know each other. Never mind that we’re a clan of 20 Asian people.

ITEM 3. When instructing your father that your pizza takes 45 min to cook, you should allot enough buffer time for Panicking Father Who Does Not Speak English time, otherwise, you’ll end up with a half-cooked pizza or very unhappy firemen. If you say, “This pizza needs to be cooked at 425 degrees F for 45 min”, he will instinctly, shut off the oven at exactly 22 min, and panic, and his reason to you is: “I didn’t know if it would shut off later when I really needed it to.” 

That’s like stopping 5 miles short of the traffic light, because your car might not stop at the moment that you really need it to. That’s like jumping off the plane in Boston because you’re not sure if it’s going to really land in Chicago when you really need it to. 

Then he tells me what he saw, in his mind’s eye, if the oven didn’t turn off in 45 min: yards of flames shooting from the oven, pepperonis flying out like ninja stars and plumes of black smoke enshrouding the apartment. This is his vision, and you can’t fuck with it. How about the deep, resonant voice of a Frenchmen laughing out hysterically from the gaping mouth of the oven? Was that in his vision? We’ll never know.

Consequently, instead of walking home and being met with the faint musk of pepperoni and cheese, and a crispy dough aroma raising up into your nose, lifting you off your feet, your pizza turns out to be one big white doughy mess sitting there in the cool darkness of the otherwise bare oven for at least 23 minutes now.  In general, “Panicking Father” time usually requires at least 15 min buffer.

ITEM 4. When the building’s fire alarm goes off at 4AM as it is wont to do, the following procedures should be taken: Lock your father in his room. No, scratch that. Sedate your father, then lock him in his room. His panicky ways will surely lead to his and your own demise. Things that are good sedatives are Benadryl caplets - he’ll sleep and be hive-free. Drugging your own father with anti-histamines is not a crime; I’ve checked. 

If you fail to do this, he will run up and down the hallway screaming that you need to do something about this. But instead, you remain very still hoping that maybe he won’t see you lying in bed, half-asleep and doing your very best to ignore a) the blaring air horns piped through the building’s PA system and b) your father’s heightened voice now talking rapidly on the phone to your sister telling her that he thinks you’re dead (due to your unresponsive nature) and that there’s some strange noise coming out of the ceiling that just won’t stop. Sleeping through a fire alarm is tough, but if you put your mind to it, it can be done.

Fire alarms are #2 on the list of Things That Make My Father Panic. Burnt pizza is #6.

There’s more but I’m afraid I would just depress you, and you’re probably depressed enough as it is. 

You read these and you think, this boy does not love his parents enough, and I can only ask you people one thing: do you like eating spaghetti with tomato soup? No? I didn’t think so. And if that isn’t a priority in your life, I don’t know what else to say to you.

Appendix A: Things That Make My Father Panic

10. Planes that might not land in Chicago as intended.

9. Failing car brakes

8. GO Buses that go awry (i.e. not to Cooksville).

7. Missing his television show (Monday Night RAW)

6. An oven that has been left on for more then 25 minutes.

5. Missing a bowel movement (see #3)

4. Losing his wallet

3. Running out of orange juice

2. Loud air-horn type fire alarms

1. My mother