Let me start by saying my dad is cool, for a dad. He’s honest, fair, has a great sense of humor, and most of the time will let me live my own life regardless of how he feels about it.

Keep all that in mind while I relay some of my most vivid childhood memories of the man.

Memory #1
My Dad and I are playing checkers. I’m eight years old and he rules at the game. I have yet to beat him, but through some odd turn of luck, I win. He loudly declares that I did not win because my move was illegal.

It wasn’t illegal when he moved that way! To this day, he tells me that I have not beaten him at a game of checkers.

Memory #2
We’re at a local mall and getting out of our car on a hot, hot day. Since my dad is too cheap to use the air conditioning (it wastes gas, he says), I crack my window a bit before we leave so it’s not stifling.

“Close your window all the way! Someone could throw a cigarette in the car and set it on fire!”

The crack is tiny. Someone would literally have to deliberately push their cigarette through the opening! I understand his reasoning…people do some mean and weird things. It’s possible, but not likely. Apparently, it happened to a friend of a friend of the family…and you know how that goes.

I close the window.

Memory #3
I was walking to the car from the grocery store and in typical fashion, I was walking with my head down (self-esteem issues, poor posture, who knows). As soon as I get into the car, “Pay attention! Someone could just come out and kill or rape you! All because you walk with your head down!”

It’s broad daylight. The car is parked right in front of the grocery store exit. I was on the verge of saying, “You wouldn’t try to save me or anything?”

I sometimes wonder if my family is crazy or if this is how Filipino families work.