Growing up, many of you had to put up with stories of "walking 3 miles in the freeze cold, up hill both ways..."

Me? I had to put up with this:

"When I was your age, I slept next to dead bodies just to hide from the communist!! And you're getting C's??" (Note: Junior high report cards meant nothing - and you know it!)

Yeah. Me. Who moved over here from Taiwan at age 13, with as much command of the english language as your NYC cab driver, is now competing with someone who traveled from China to Taiwan (thousands of miles), ALONE, and dodging bullets while hiding from the communists?!?!

Yeah right.

Oh. Did I mention he also gave up his movie career to move to this country just so I can have a good education?

"We don't want to give you any pressure, but you DO know that we gave up our movie careers just so you can have a good education...AND you're getting C's?!!" (Note: Alright - I slacked off a little in highschool too)

My dad's been in this country for 18 years now. In 18 years, for the first 10, the only thing he knew how to say was:

"mykl no home. you leave message?"

As you probably guessed, there's an obvious problem with the statement above. Um.

He doesn't know english.

Friends would leave messages, and (surprise!) none would make it through.

So, eventually, the messages stopped.

My dad had a lot of rules and regulations. Nothing too strict - but he had a interesting way to enforce the rule. Instead of following me around and yelling at me to do my chores, he's leave notes. These weren't the little yellow post-it notes. He wrote messages on the back of mail-to-home coupons and taped it up with scotch tape. Yup, home made signs:

"Turn off lights"

"Lock the door when you leave"

"Dirty dishes must be clean"

"Fill ice cube tray"

"Put club on car"

"No parking tickets today"

And at the bottom of every note:

THANK YOU

COOPERATE

Now you know.