The Dypolts

CATEGOLY: Family
DATE OF EVENT: 1996-1997

They were my host family and they are my Canadian family. Before I talk about them, I want to introduce my family. From left, it is Milt the boss, Madonna Launa Lynn (Launa Lynn is her name), Stella the rabbit, and Trouble Tracy. When I lived with them, Launa and Tracy had already left home, so I mainly lived with Milt and Stella. They were extremely nice to me. They treated me like I was their real son, and Milt used to call me No. 2 son. Milt is not only a good man but also he is a good husband and good father. Living with him and watching what he did for me as my Canadian father and what he did for Stella taught me a lot about what the ideal husband and father is. In the future if I have a chance to become a husband and father, I hope I can be like him.

Stella is my Canadian mother, even though she was Polish. She took good care of me. She was everyone. What I mean is that she was the one who cooked for me. She was the one, who did my laundry. She was the one who turned off the light when I passed out. She was the one who saw me sleeping on the floor. But more importantly she was the one I always picked on. I had done so many bad things to her. The worst one is probably the Christmas card (I think it was a Christmas card) I sent to her when I was in Japan. It wasn't just a Christmas card. It was invented just to make her surprise. It was the result of my months of planning. Inside the card, I put a coin, which was attached to twisted rubber bands. When someone tries to open the card the coin flips and makes noises. Not only that I also put a toy cockroach. Now you see what my plan was. When Stella opens the card, she will scream first and reflectively she will shake her hands, which will allow the cockroach to jump out. Then she will scream even harder. Guess what people. Unfortunately I could not be there to witness, but this is what she told me. My plan was more than perfect. First she opened the card. She heard the noise and she was panicked. Then the cockroach came out AND landed on her hand. Can you imagine? It landed on her hand. Awesome! It was more than what I planed. She screamed so hard, she hurt her throat. She also hurt her ankle because of my present. Oh my god, please help this little evil.

Tracy is just like me too. She likes dirty jokes. She is always looking for troubles. I remember when I visited her place in summer of 1999, she took me to a place where people come to through unwanted things away and take things that they want. You can say it isn't much differ from dumpster diving. She picked up a dirty hat and said, "This is for mom." She picked up something else I don't remember and said, "This is for Kelly. She will be so happy," knowing Kelly, Tracy's wife, will freak out. We went home. Kelly was there at the door to welcome her lovely Tracy and me. She was smiling and seemed happy to see us until she found out that Tracy brought the garbage. Suddenly she yelled at Tracy. Tears on her eyes, she cried, but Tracy was laughing. There I was in the middle of wife-wife fighting, I didn't know which side I should have been. Kelly and I had just met and didn't know her well, I though I should be her side, BUT I couldn't resist who I was. I started laughing too. I was like "Yeah, that's my sister!" A few months later I sent a 10 page paper that I had to read for a class about dumpster diving to Kelly to let her know how important to recycle and reuse things.

Launa was my sister. Somehow she really made me feel she was my older sister from the moment we met first time. I don't know maybe it because she is very friendly. I was happy that I felt that way because I always wanted to have a sister after living and struggling with my evil brother. Now many of you may wonder whey the picture says, "We love Calvin?" It is because Launa made me a nickname, which was "Calvin". So my name became "Calvin" in this family. The most memorial moment of her is the iron knuckle. When I visited Calgary for the first time I believe, she took me around with her friends. One of her friends pissed her off and they started arguing. Next thing I saw was Launa's iron knuckle straight into his face. There is only one thing I want to say, "If you smell what the Launa is cooking."