My dad was a man of routine. Even when we had dozens of cable channels, he would watch just one. And naturally he had his favourite parking lot. It fulfilled several criteria, including being closest to his apartment block but slightly off the pathway. He wanted to minimise his walk but was also worried that a random passerby would damage his car.
When I started borrowing his car, I would sometimes get back too late to score that lot. It annoyed him. I felt a combination of guilt and also self-righteousness that life isn't about adjusting your schedule for a parking lot.
It is easy to mock a person of habit. Boring, predictable, unspontaneous. But I realised that is probably why some of his friends and customers loved him - the other name for boring is reliable.
My dad was a mechanic. After he suffered from a stroke, I took over maintaining the car. And I'm still struggling to find a workshop I can trust. (Unfortunately my sisters and I never got down to learning from my dad). At a car workshop, usually the customer knows so little relative to the mechanic - the information asymmetry means it has to be a relationship of trust. I supposed my dad never ripped people off, that's why he had customers who returned for more than twenty years. I once hit the side skirt of the car and brought it to my dad's friend's workshop - they refused to take any payment when they saw my dad's car.
Someone asked me recently why I'm so punctual when most Singaporeans are habitually late. That's because my dad never wanted people to wait for him, and trained us to do the same.
And for those who have asked me before how I can be so hardworking, I have to say that I don't think I work as hard as my parents did. His hands were often full of unattractive grease, but it was those coarse, blackened hands that helped raise us with honest hard work. My dad never had a fancy corner office, but he taught me much more with his favourite parking lot.
Rest in peace Pa.
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Image: "Hands" by Benjamin Lehman
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