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At 13 y/o, against all my friends' advice and pure common sense, I stole my sister's car (she wanted a new one anyway) and ran away from home.
We weren’t poor - by any means.
On the contrary, we were the stereotypical "comfortably well-off" two-professional Asian family.
And my parents were not diabolical, abusive monsters either.
My father was a ridiculously educated, extensively trained and licensed shrink and my mother was an R.N., Nurse Practitioner and O.R. Nurse Anesthetist.
Prior to landing in the United States, both of my parents came from poor, rural parts of Asia (Thailand and the Philippines).
Needless to say, they were very proud of their life achievements.
But they never forgot their cultural and familial traditions and routinely put dozens of relatives – no matter how distant the familial relationship may be – through college.
After they were both naturalized U.S. citizens, they petitioned for (and were granted) U.S. entry visas for over a hundred Filipino, Thai and Chinese friends and relatives.
Of course, relatives from both sides of the family continually kissed their asses. And as far as my mother was concerned, rightly so!
It was strange growing up in such a financially focused clan.
I would get “boring” stuff like cash, Kodak Preferred Stock, Utility or Water Company Debt (ownership) Certificates, U.S. Savings Bonds, etc. as birthday or Christmas gifts.
Hell, I even got a special, very expensive chair once.
No kidding.
It was a French antique chair that I couldn’t even sit on!
Apparently, as a “one time gift to a minor” like me, my parents could legally have custody (own it), but did not have to declare it as an asset on their taxes.
However, if need be, they could exercise their custodial rights and offer the chair’s value as collateral for any loans, long term annuity plans or any of those “exotic”, profit earning life insurance policies.
Imagine that?
So why did I run away?
In a word: “Freedom”.
I felt like my mother had my whole life planned out for me from the moment I was born.
From my beginning, she made it clear that school was my life’s top priority. As far as she was concerned, everything else came in as a poor second or third place.
That meant that any and all non-school activity I enjoyed was labeled as a “waste of time” and actively discouraged.
On the rare occasions when I stubbornly wouldn’t give up the “time waster”, my behavior would be tolerated in the most guilt-inducing, passive-aggressive way possible.
Luckily, school was always easy for me and straight A’s kept my mother off my back; especially when I was creating art, practicing martial arts, caring for my pets or playing tennis.
Okay. Moving on to what happened after I ran away.
At 13 y/o, I was doing my best to survive on the streets; taking any and all odd jobs that paid in cash.
I vividly remember collecting as many aluminum cans I could find and dumping sacks of them into the recycle machines for a few cents of gas or food.
Many times I lived off of the condiments I could pinch from fast-food restaurants.
Then I got a 300+ customer newspaper route.
While driving my sister's car, I delivered the newspapers at 3:00 am, 7 days a week.
After a couple months, the routine became an unconscious habit. I could perfectly throw those newspapers out the car window and have it land exactly where my customers wanted to pick it up in the morning.
But then I got complacent, stupidly cocky.
There I was, happily operating in “auto mode” doing my car paper route, when BAM! I slammed into a vehicle that was parked in a spot that – until that very moment - was ALWAYS empty!
I neither panicked, nor did I pull a runner. My father didn’t raise me that way.
Dutifully, I left a note taking full responsibility for the accident, plus my contact details under the windshield wiper of my customer’s damaged car.
The next morning, the customer, a mean looking, 70+ y/o African American and retired cop, surprised the sh*t out of me. He said that he admired my honesty, assured me that his insurance would more than cover the damaged bumper and (get this) gave me $50; knowing full well that I would use it for food, not on my own car repairs.
During and after the paper route, I worked 10 Hour Shifts in a real life glue factory!
(Really. This is a no-sh*tter.)
My job was to measure the "tightness and quality of the bottle's seal" with calipers and and an "electronic" sniffer device.
I did this procedure according to a strict schedule printed out on a semi-weekly basis FOR 10 HOURS A DAY, 5 DAYS A WEEK.
(Oh boy, sounds f*ckin' exciting, huh?)
Next came a job at a golf and tennis country club.
Prior to running away, I had been a USTA junior tennis champion.
So, it was easy to fill a vacant tennis instructor slot at a ritzy Southern Florida country club.
I was ~ 15 y/o.
While teaching tennis at the country club, I met a lovely woman.
She was not at all like the typical snobby, rich bitches I met daily at the club. She was funny, intelligent and in my eyes, irresistibly cute!
In spite of her being many years my senior, we hit it off instantly; becoming friends both on and off the tennis court.
In addition to the obscene amount of wealth left to her by her late banker husband, she was also a successful real estate agent. Her giant house was right next to one of the pristine, well-manicured greens of the golf course.
After a couple months, while watching some Blockbuster video, she paused the VHS, looked me squarely in the eye and said, "Hey J.C., I know you know that I like you - a lot. And although you don't complain, I also know that your life can't be the easiest these days. I'm alone in this big "echo chamber" of a house. Why don't you just move-in? No really! Stop laughing, damn it! I'm being serious!"
I stopped laughing long enough to hug and kiss her; saying, "Hell yes! But only if you promise to tell me if/when you regret ever asking me."
We lived together until I was old enough to join the military at 17.
Again, I say, "Imagine that?"
(If warranted, this story will be continued in future posts.)
Thanks for reading my long-winded anecdote.
In Lak'ech, JaiChai
(JaiChai 25 SEP 2021. Simultaneous multi-site submissions posted. All rights reserved.)