The blueberries glaring at back, the sirens roaring wild seeming to foreshadow the storm of events to unfold. A lone cop ominously lurks toward my dad’s car; little did he know what he was in for. I wake up, the clock flashes 4:40 a.m. and I check out the ruckus brewing outside my window. My dad makes a big scene that seemingly wakes up everyone on our street. One thing you must know about my dad is that he says whatever he truly feels and he does not hold back anything. He lacks an inner voice that filters or prevents him from saying something no matter what the situation is.


I get up and try to tell my dad to calm down. He ignores me and I see him get out of the car and start poking the cop in the chest and he blurts out expletive on top of expletive. It was a surreal thing for me to witness like a scene from cops gone awry. My dad for the most part is a cool, collected and laid back person, but that day it was like he was possessed by a demon Chihuahua who was picking a fight with a bull dog. I notice that the police officer is slowly getting more and more impatient; he was probably working the graveyard shift all night and now he has a furious seemingly crazy 57 year old Filipino man in his face.


Five minutes later my dad is sprawled on the hood of the cop car and I rush to wake up my mom as a last resort. I did not want to wake her up because she get’s highly emotional and I thought she would just add fuel to the flame. However, my mom on this day turns out to be the voice of reason and just as quickly as my dad made a scene explains to the cop that he wasn’t stealing a car since it was his and that he lived here. It turned out that everything was just a misunderstanding my dad fit the description of a robber on the run, but another cop radios in that they caught the guy which ruled my dad out. The cops apologizes, probably relieved that they don’t have to haul my crazy dad to jail. Surprisingly, my dad nonchalantly goes on with his day like nothing even happened.


Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that my dad is a brilliant fool. I don’t mean it in a bad way and someday I wish I could be just like him or even half as successful. The closest person I could compare him to is Homer Simpson and in fact when my mom and I watch the show we laugh about the resemblance. My dad does not look like Homer physically since unlike Homer my dad is in pretty good shape, has a full head of hair and wears a beard, but the personality of the two mirrors perfectly. My dad has worked hard all his life, he is caring and endearing to his family and he makes goofs sometimes, but he means well. What makes my dad a brilliant fool is that he makes those mistakes and is fallible, but it makes him and our family stronger. He prompts my family to rally together and get through things or laugh at the surreal situations that my dad seems to get himself bogged in knowing full well that nothing can keep him down for long.