The Gift Your Dad Really Wants

My dad is a man of simple tastes. He owns a prohibitively expensive Italian espresso machine that drizzles out silky smooth Americanos at the touch of a button—but he still drives to McDonald’s upwards of three times a day to order a black "senior’s coffee" (emphasis on the “senior’s,” because it’s the 15-cent discount that really makes it worth it). He’s been getting the same haircut from the same local barbershop for going on 40 years now. He wears so much black and gray that the last time he showed up to dim sum in color—a lilac sweater—his children and grandchildren erupted like Raptors fans after the Eastern Conference Finals.

So you can imagine that, when birthdays and Christmases and Father’s Days roll around, he doesn’t want for much. “Socks,” he’ll shrug, when you ask him if there’s anything he needs. For decades, my siblings and I interpreted that answer as an open challenge of sorts—a lower-stakes version of when your partner says, “Don’t get me anything for Valentine’s Day, OK?” and they really mean, “This present better blow me away, or you’ll be sleeping in the backseat of the minivan.” Year after year, we’d put our heads and funds together for a creative solution: new golf clubs, new blazers, DVD box sets of his favorite action movies, fancy headphones, all the sorts of things you’d normally find on gift guides in magazines like this one. He was always grateful and appreciative, of course, but in a slightly perfunctory way.

Finally, a few years back, I said screw it and just bought my dad some damn socks. I went to Costco and got him a couple jumbo-sized mega-packs of dress socks in his beloved black and gray. It felt like an admission of defeat. But then the day rolled around, and he unwrapped them, and his eyes lit up and he started to chuckle with the joy of a thousand senior’s coffees. Finally, his laugh seemed to say. Finally, you idiots actually listened to me. What we’d always assumed was a nothing burger response was actually a genuine, heartfelt request. He’d really wanted socks, because they are simple and utilitarian and the kind of thing you often forget to buy for yourself. He folded all those pairs into a meticulous, Marie-Kondo-approved drawer, and for the next few days would legitimately hike his pants up and show them off to people like, “My son bought me these.”

 Originally posted and composed for GQ by Yang-Yi Goh