Ohohoy!

I probably have used the word ‘Ohohoy!’ thousands of times over the past few years but there were certainly a lot of Ohohoy! moments during my childhood years (the word was non-existent back then) that were quite memorable.

I remember my mom cutting my fingernails and putting them in a small envelope and she puts the envelope under my pillow as I take my afternoon nap. When I wake up…. Ohohoy! The fingernails magically turn into a one peso coin! That was probably my earliest recollection of an Ohohoy! moment aside from the usual Christmas and birthday gifts of course.

Morrissey wore it like a badge

I went to school in an exclusive boys Catholic school where we were required to have military style haircuts. But back in the 80’s when anything goes with hairstyles, everyone was trying to be creative with just the tops of their hairs. Some had long teased bangs (Ohohoy! Robert Smith) while others had pompadours (a la Morrissey). But there was one guy who took it to another level: he was late for class, about 30 minutes or so. And upon arriving, he takes off his cap and shows everyone (with pride) HIS NEWLY PERMED HAIR. “Ohohoy! Kulot si …..” followed by around 10 minutes of uncontrolled laughter and a whole lifetime of grilling.

Some Ohohoy! moments don’t really last that long. I was around 14 years old when I was in the BMX phase of my life. I was biking around the park when a group of girls were waving to me and asking for help on how to start their Moped. I thought to myself, “Ohohoy! Really now?”. So I pedalled full force on my trusty BMX looking straight to where the girls were and certainly not noticing that there was a rock (that was probably as excited as I was) right in front of me. All my hopes of becoming the neighborhood heartthrob came crashing down because of the overly excited rock! And so my Ohohoy! moment suddenly turned into an Ahahay! tragedy.