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My dad loves children. He loves them so much that he personally saw to the math capabilities of all his children, especially mine.  Well, ok, for my Dad, there is only one subject in the world that means anything: math.  Being the eldest in a brood of four, I was the one who got the full brunt of that disciplinarian.  I was doing arithmetic before nursery school, decimals in prep, and trigonometry/physics in fourth grade, calculus in third year high.  I could never go out of the house without solving 50 math problems first, no matter how much my playmates begged.  That was why I hated math when I was growing up, only appreciating it in college as application kicked in. (The trauma affected my basic math skills…I still barely know my multiplication table.)

Despite this, I happen to believe that my dad is also one of the most thoughtful people in the whole wide world.  My sister Alex and I recently talked about this one whole academic term — the worst she and I have ever had — when she was struggling with her undergraduate thesis (plus two other difficult major subjects) and I was despairing over my master’s thesis.  One time, during this period, my dad saw my sister slaving over her computer.  She had been doing her projects nonstop and it was already 2AM. He asked her gently, “Why don’t you go to sleep?”

Alex faced my dad — cheeks already tear-streaked, voice so hysterical it went up a decibel higher — and wailed, “Hindi ako puwede matulog! Hindi ako puwede matulooooooog! Waaaaaaah!” (I can’t afford to sleep! I can’t afford to sleep! *bawls*)

Then a couple of days later, I sent my parents a barrage of desperate, emo texts about how close I was to giving up and how I labored and toiled over something that was bound to fail.

The next day, we found a can of Enervon Prime on top of our groceries.  It came from our Dad and he said it was meant for his hardworking daughters. LOL. That certainly broke our chain of misery because Alex and I couldn’t get over the irony of our middle-aged father buying his twenty-something daughters a memory enhancing drink meant for the elderly.

Ok, this is how bad my memory is…I wasn’t sure if the drink was Enervon Prime or Sustagen Premium. Alex and I thought it was Sustagen Prime.  Thank goodness I remembered the television ad that went along the lines of, “Bawal ang pork, hipon, beans…” (Do not eat pork, shrimp, beans…) Did a bit of research and finally confirmed that my Dad indeed got us Enervon Prime.

Now that my sister and I are once again crossing another fork in the road, looks like we need that memory enhancer again.  I still can’t get over how we ended up making it a part of our diet then.  But you know, despite the hilarity of the situation, both Alex and I are touched at our Dad’s thoughtfulness.