Bebot

For someone who weighs enough to remain grounded even with the help of Willy Wonka’s fizzy-lifting drinks, I’ve always had lofty dreams.

At 28, I still believe in Neverland, where I know I’m bound to be someday. I dream of: chocolate rivers and edible wallpaper; traveling the world in 79 days; my sister becoming the princess she’s destined to be; and of John Lennon leaving Yoko for me.

Although I never really saw myself as a princess – at least not until the likes of Fiona were elevated to princess-hood - I didn’t think settling for anyone less than a gallant prince was an option either.

While I have, unfortunately, let a few ogres into my life, I’ve managed to ward them off in recent years.

But that is another story.

Going back to my gay (I dare not say "fairy” and risk being accused of homophobic slur) tale: I guess I owe (or blame, depending on which end of the tower I'm at that day) my dad for my romantic disconnection from reality.

Introducing us to a life far from the ordinary, daddy was my and my sister’s very first knight
in shining armor, magical storyteller and bottomless well of wisdom.

I'm sure Tinie has her own stories of our chivalrous dad, whose childhood name, BEBOT, lends itself to less knightly tales -- I leave those for her to tell.

As for me, I will never forget the number of times BEBOT rescued me from mild amnesia:

I think I was about four years old when I first developed the I-forgot-I-had-feet syndrome. In my pretty little girlie dress (an oversized shirt mom got on sale at Fairmart) I would sit patiently (for a few minutes before screaming “daddy!”) and wait for BEBOT to carry me down from my tower – the top of a short flight of stairs - to the
breakfast table where queen-mommy usually waited.

In between spoonfuls of tinapa and rice, I would watch Bebot (sans dentures or puth-thi-tho) make a couple of hot pandesals disappear with several circular movements of his mouth.

My daddy’s amazing, I thought, he didn’t need teeth to eat. It was a secret power, I guess, since no one else seemed to know what he could do without his puth-thi-tho.

I’ve always felt lucky to have a hero and a magician for a dad.

Fast-forward a few years
and one too many hearty breakfasts later: when trips down the tower with an oversized teenager in tow became too daunting a mission, Bebot took his gallantry to different fronts.

By the time I turned 18, he became my official defender from the fearless-flying-multi-legged creatures that attacked in the middle of the night.

Armed with the day’s newspaper, rolled up and ready to rumble, he would charge at the pesky critters until they crunched no more.

To the Roach community of Sikatuna Village, Bebot was a monster, a killer. To me, he will always be the one who risked Life (the magazine - he used it to kill a
roach once) and limb (he now complains of shoulder pains, perhaps from all the frantic swatting he did) to save his not-quite-grown-up girl from harmless little bugs.

It’s been a while since I last called on my hero, whose shining armor has since been replaced by his shiny au naturele un-brushed up look. It would be great to go back to those days of hollering from the top of the staircase, waiting to face my day’s biggest dilemma: champorado or sinangag for breakfast (btw, I usually ended up having both).

Where I am right now, not only do roaches come from bigger and more treacherous BUSHes, decisions are also more difficult to make. Imagine having to choose between sunny-side up or scrambled; poached or hard-boiled when all I want is itlog.

But I’m slowly learning to stomp on the roaches and to find comfort in hollering from the other end of a choppy long-distance phone connection.

The real world can get really frustrating and on so many occasions, I probably would have given up had it not been for the one great lesson Bebot and his magic puth thi tho taught me: in life (or breakfast), you don’t need fangs to survive, just a lot of patience and guts (or gums, in his case.)