Judging by my inbox a couple of weeks back, it seems that more than a few of you got a big enough kick out of my misfortunes in a previous column, Deakinitis, where I tried explaining this unique phenomenon of how I seem to attract the most random sequence of events and manage to turn it into either a natural disaster, deportation, or just plain old double face palm material, that I decided to cave into the peer pressure and write this sequel.
But before I get into that, I feel I should tell you that this is hereditary. I got it from my mom. My first exposure to it was when she was pregnant with me. It was deep into 1972. My family was living in Hong Kong where my father was working for an airline. He was preparing to host a dinner for his regional boss from England and was extremely tensed about making sure nothing went wrong.
This was during a time when executives entertained their top clients, bosses and management teams in their homes, simply because a man’s character was usually measured by his family and much of their approval hinged on how he raised his children as well as his wife’s housekeeping skills, culinary skills and general hospitality. My mother is a fabulous cook, so no problem there. She also has incredible people skills and conversational skills. But for some reason, she tends to do some strange things under pressure.
Aside from the fact that she had to entertain my dad’s superior, a man she had never met and who everyone seemed to fear, it just so happened that he had one arm. And he was very particular about it, too. He didn’t want anyone mentioning the arm or treating him differently because of it. So much so, that he insisted on having steak on the menu, just to show he could do anything a man with two arms could.
My father told my mother that she should not make any mention of the arm under any circumstances. He reminded her several times on the day just to be sure, and once more just as the doorbell rang. She vowed to not mention it and only speak when spoken to––and even then, say as little as possible.
Dinner went well. He even complimented my mother on her cooking. Noticing how heavily pregnant she was, he said, “I hear it is not long to go now, Mrs. Deakin. Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?†to which my mom very nervously but instinctively replied, “We don’t really mind, so long as the child is healthy and normal with two arms and two legs...â€
Batanes, Philippines, 2010. Four of us friends are on a mountain biking trip. I’m sharing a room with a fellow biker, Ira, who is built like a television wrestler. To cut a long story short, after spending the whole day riding and half the evening downing some beers and cracking the compulsory jokes that men who share rooms do about who will be caught bed-hopping, we hit the sack.
Now, when sharing a room with anyone but my wife, I always sleep in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Ira, on the other hand, being very comfortable in his own skin, needs nothing more than jockey shorts. I made a token plea for him to put something else on but eventually just pulled the sheets over my head and slept.
Halfway through the night, I woke up to find Ira leaning over me, his red briefs just inches from my face. All I could say was, “Wag po, kuya, wag.â€
Turns out that the aircon, which was behind me directly over my bed, had been on timer and switched itself off. Apparently Ira had been suffocating for some time and was telling me to turn the damn thing back on. Thanks to the four or five beers I had downed earlier, I didn’t wake up––until the exact moment he decided to reach for it. I cried myself to sleep that night, and many nights after that.
Europe, June 2004. The late Kookie Ramirez and I were driving through six countries in almost as many days during my very first European trip. We had a plan as loose as the change we had rattling in our pockets, and survived solely by eating ourselves silly during the complimentary breakfasts in the cheap motels we stayed in. And to save even more, while Kookie would go and settle the bill and distract the innkeeper, I would make sandwiches for lunch using all the bread rolls, cold meats and cheeses, wrap them up in paper napkins and stuff it inside my jacket.
Initially, this horrified Kookie. But when you’re given 50 Euros each to survive on per day and need to stretch it to cover gas, hotels and food, eventually he compromised; a blind eye probably seemed like a fair exchange for a full stomach. We did this day in and day out, from France to Germany, Belgium to Amsterdam, Italy and Austria. And it got easier each time. It got to the point when once we left the hotel, it looked like housekeeping had run a vacuum cleaner over the breakfast buffet.
Somewhere around the last day, though, while I went to work on the buffet and Kookie went to settle the bill and distract the owner/operator of the little inn, Kookie glanced up and went as red as the apples at the checkout counter when he noticed the CCTV screen just behind the owner with crystal clear images of me ravishing the buffet in the next room with a smile wider than the slice of watermelon I was trying to find a pocket for. It took everything he could to keep the owner’s attention until I walked out pregnant with sandwiches and fruit––and although we got away with it, I always get a little nervous watching those European ‘caught on camera’ or ‘guests behaving badly’ shows on late night TV.
January, 2011, England. Somewhere near Stansted airport: I was visiting my dad who had just been told he had a malignant tumor that needed to be removed. As I was preparing to fly home, my dad kept offering to drive me to Heathrow. I refused because it’s a painful 225 kilometer round trip along the notorious M25, so I asked him to drop me at the bus station in Stansted, which is six or seven miles from his home.
The bus I was booked on had engine trouble. So he offered again. I refused and said I’ll still have time if I catch the next bus, which would arrive in an hour, and suggested we look for a quiet place nearby to have coffee. After driving past a few closed pubs, we found ourselves outside a very strange hotel.
We picked a quiet corner away from the breakfast guests and ordered a couple of cappuccinos. We sat on old leather lounges and chatted, and by 9:45am, we settled the tab and headed back to Stansted to catch the 10am coach to Heathrow. He loads me on the coach, we say our ‘goodbyes’ and drives off. Once seated and on the motorway, I did the normal check of documents. S**t! My passport! I couldn’t find it anywhere! I checked every pocket and every bag. Nothing.
By the time I gathered up the courage to call my dad and hit the alarm, he was almost home. Sensing the panic in my voice, I barley finished my sentence and he had already swung the car around and headed straight back to that funky hotel. Problem was, because I had already missed the first bus, I was already on track for a photo finish for the airport check in.
My dad enters the hotel, heads straight for the corner we were in, and spots my passport on the couch. The damn thing had slipped out of a brand new jacket I was wearing that was made out of the slipperiest fabric you can imagine and had pockets as shallow as a politician’s promise. And then the chase begins. Cue MI2 soundtrack here.
Here’s a man, who, just days before had been told by his doctors to avoid stress and take it easy, which explains why I’m taking the bus, who now needs to make the 225 km drive at qualifying speed to catch up. The tension was tangible. Even the strangers around me on the bus were asking for updates. He eventually makes it with less than a minute to spare.
On the plane home, I wondered if Deakinitis was some kind of a curse. Until I realized that aside from the fact that these things are simply colorful brush strokes that make up the picture of our lives, it is God’s way of steering you into places you wouldn’t normally go. And it only dawned on me while writing this article that the super dad episode was the last time I saw my father. He passed away four months later. And had it not been for Deakinitis, he wouldn’t have had the chance to be a hero one last time.