Hand Me The Scissors

My dad has an accent. (He is the bukbuk in the hapa + bukbuk = me equation.) I was not aware of this until I left for college and came home for the first time. Suddenly I was asking him to repeat things because I couldn’t make them out the first time around. It is not a thick accent, like some of my relatives and family friends, but it’s an accent nevertheless.

When I visit my parents now I mimic him. I can’t help it. Once he learned that I wasn’t mocking him, he became less self conscious about it. I just love the way he says things. Sometimes it bothers him, but mostly not so much. He will still occasionally claim he doesn’t have an accent, which makes it all the harder to not mimic him when something I forget he says differently comes out.

Without fail when I see him I ask him to say my favorite word.

“Dad, say this, say this: ‘Hand me the scissors.’”

“No, why?”

“C’mon just say it!”

“Hand me the see-soars.”

“See-soars! Hahahahha! I love it I love it! Say it again!”

Sometimes I wonder if he ever thinks there's something wrong with me.