#98. Easter (Saturday, April 22, 2000)

What was your best day…of meeting a friend you didn’t even know you had?

So far, if you’ve been keeping track, I’ve already referred to five “best friends” I’ve had at different points in my life: Harry Liu (#108), Derek Dunlop (#123, #103), Damien Bei (#121), Masato Takamura (#112, #99), Jason Simonsen (#104); and there’s more to come. Which could speak to a lot of things—but we won’t get into that here…

What I will point out, though, is that had my family not moved when I was five to Ottawa for work and instead stayed in the Toronto area, my “best friend” for life would, in all likelihood, have remained David Huang.

He had been born a month before me, and his parents and my parents had lived in the same apartment complex for international students on Yonge and Charles while they were all doing graduate studies at the University of Toronto.

After our move, our parents did keep in touch, but David and I pretty much lost contact. Until this Easter weekend in my fourth-grade year, when my dad, his parents (who were visiting from Shanghai for the year), and I went to visit David and his family for the first time in five plus years at their condo in Mississauga.

For most of that time, David and I played Twisted Metal 2 on his PlayStation. It was my first time playing a game in co-op mode, and thus my first time learning just how damned fun it was shouting out a strategy with the guy sitting next to you on how to corner that undead motorcycle rider (and collectively raging when you both die to him).
On Saturday, while my dad and grandparents were at Niagara Falls, David really wanted his mom to take us to Sega City, a giant arcade place attached to the massive Square One Shopping Centre. He was hassling her so much that she shouted: “All day it’s Sega City, Sega City. Mom is going to punish you now.”¹ (Apparently, David had the same affinity as me for tracking random funny things, so this became Item #1 on our list of “funny things said” from our visits.)
Later that day, we did end up going to Sega City, but it was too full; so instead, his dad takes us to Square One. He buys us each a booster pack from the latest Base Set 2 Pokémon card set. Then, in another store, we find this dark blue baseball cap with a star-shaped thing on it, and he tells me to try it on. Item #2 on the “funny things said” list:

(I look in the mirror. The hat looks cool, but the tags are hanging on the back, making me look like a girl.)
Me: I really like it, but it kind of makes me look like a girl.
David’s dad: Okay, then let’s find a cap that doesn’t make you look like a girl.
Me: (realizing I can just cut the tags off after) No, it’s fine. I’m okay with this cap.
David’s dad: I thought you said you looked like a girl. Let’s find another one…
Me: No really, it’s good. I can get this one.
David’s dad: All right, I’ll go with that then.
David (sneering at his dad): Yeah! Ho, ho, ho…ow! (while saying this, he was, for some reason, bending the hinge of his glasses above his head; but he then thrusts his arm forward while it’s latched onto his hair, and it pulls his hair)

We were supposed to go swimming later that afternoon² with some family friends’ kids from the condo below. Except their mom hadn’t come home yet, so David and I were forced to spend two hours babysitting their two (annoying) kids: one of whom spent most of the time bashing us with this giant plastic six-foot cigarette.
Fittingly, that spring the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs were in the middle of their first-ever playoff series. And Game 5 was that Saturday night. It went into an intense overtime, which ended with a beautiful goal from Stumpy Thomas.

And so, for those three days at least, I could say I had found another best friend.

Translation disclaimer applies. It really does not sound as awkward in Chinese.
This was despite me, well…not knowing how to swim yet. Or at least swim with head in the water. Yet, I can distinctly recall racing David at least ten times and jumping into the pool with a huge splash each time (and losing each time).