Don’t Judge My Father by His “Sarung”

I really meant this title as a different version from the proverb “don’t judge the book by its cover.” Well, I know that many people have strong tendency to look upon someone from his/her outer appearance, and that’s okay. But sometimes, they become absorb to outer appearance, until it hinder them to see what really exist beneath that appearance. And my father is no exception, means he always become the target of “that look” if you know what I mean, being so unique and just the way he is.

As I said, my father is not a type of man who always polishes his appearance all the time. He is not a hippy, though, he is really just a very simple person. He can be looks like a gentleman if he wants to, but that only happens when he has to work. He is original-minded person, and because of all those things, he often be the target of, well, “that look.”

One day, he went to the mall with me and my sister, because she needed a new backpack. He wanted to bought a nice, expensive backpack for her, because he thought a nice backpack would be more worth-saving than a cheap but flimsy backpack. Right after his afternoon prayer, without took-off his sarung and only wore sandals, he went to the mall with my sister and me. (For those who don’t know what a sarung is, well, it’s a piece of cloth usually wore by Indonesian men when they are praying or in casual circumstances, and it’s not a kind of cloth someone would wear to go to the big mall).

Anyway, we found a fancy surfing-store which sold many nice backpacks, and my sister dragged me inside. My father still a little bit left behind, because he was busy looking at the display of a watch store. When he entered, from behind the racks, I saw the surf-store’s young clerks and cashier were looking intensely at my father (I knew their eyes were on his sarung and sandals). My father, however, seemed indifferent and continued to looking around.

After found a backpack she liked, my sister went to the cashier and put the backpack on the desk. “Can I put this here for a while ? I still want to looking around,” she said, and the cashier nodded. So she dissappeared again behind the racks, but then we saw our father approached the cashier desk. There were no other visitors in that store, so he assumed that the backpack was my sister’s choice. He picked up the backpack to examine it, but the cashier snatched it roughly from his hand.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said coldly, while the other clerks also stared at my father as if he had done something wrong. The next scene almost made me laugh my heads off, when my sister quickly approached the cashier desk and said to my father, “I’m done.”

“Is there anything you fancy ?” Asked my father.

“No.”

Then, under the stare of clerks and cashier, my father took out his wallet and presented…a Golden Visa card. You wouldn’t believe how quick their faces changed, from a dislike and suspiciousness to almost an adoration. Inner thought : “so this ‘sarung’ guy holds a Golden Visa. Quick ! Kiss his sandals !” The cashier tone when she said “thank you” to my father was overly sweet and brilliantly polished, with the slight tone of regret. Oh yeah, I thought, the joy of having a Golden Visa.

Despite the hilarity of that episode in the store, I felt sad. Because my father, behind his eccentric appearance, is truly a nice, kind man. But some people has chose to honoured him because of his Golden Visa, not his kindness.