The CEO in Plaid Pyjamas

I was eleven years old at the time, but it might as well been just yesterday.

I'd almost fallen asleep when I heard my door open. The light from the hall spilled onto my floor in a narrow stripe. The door ajar, someone tiptoed to my bed and knelt beside me.

"Emmy, are you asleep?" I heard my dad's voice.

"Almost," I mumbled, eyes still closed, cheek pressed to the warm and soft pillow. "Why?"

"Do you wanna go get pizza and ice cream and watch a movie?" he whispered.

My eyes flung open and I peered at him, trying to determine if he was joking, if I was being pranked. He was smiling, but not laughing. He looked excited.

It wasn’t something we did. We stayed awake past our bedtime only on special occasions. We always ate healthy dinners, and if we did have pizza, it was usually homemade.

But my dad also never played jokes on people, never made someone else the punchline. Why would he start with me?

"For real?" I couldn’t hide my disbelief.

"Yes, for real, silly!" he smiled widely.

I jumped up from bed as if charged and the tiredness was gone within a blink. He caught me with one arm and carried me to the door, pressing a finger over his lips with the other hand.

"But we have to be really quiet. Kelly and Benjamin are asleep," he whispered.

"They’re not coming?" I blurted out, surprised. Almost too loudly.

In our house, no one got bigger ice cream than someone else or longer screen time—if it didn't involve schoolwork, of course. And everyone who wanted to join was included in family activities. Mom and Dad always made sure everything was shared equally among the three of us.

"Nope," Dad shook his head, his finger still covering his mouth. "It’s just us and Mom. So we have to be really quiet."

I pressed my hand over my mouth as well and nodded.

A realization hit me and I leaned closer to Dad’s ear and whispered extra quietly—because we were walking past Kelly’s bedroom—that I had to change my clothes, that I was in my jammies.

Dad stretched out his one arm that wasn’t holding me and nodded towards his own outfit. He was wearing his navy blue plaid pyjamas and his woolly old-people’s slippers.

"It’s warm outside and we’ll only be gone for a moment," he shrugged.

Excitement threatened to burst me. I pressed my hand over my mouth even tighter, so not a peep would escape. Who was that man, and where was my dad, I remember thinking.

Mom was waiting downstairs with my own slippers and smiled widely when saw us coming.

She put slippers on my feet and we ran to the car with Dad.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. My dad! My dad, who was always dressed nicely—who wore suits for the most part—ran out the door and drove into town in his jammies.

It was probably a quick twenty-minute drive to town and back, but to me it was a whole adventure. I remember I kept whispering and didn’t speak in full voice even in the car, where we were far from my sleeping siblings. I felt like an accomplice in a big secret. Something that was just for me and Dad to share.

The guy at the pizza place looked at us like he'd suspected we'd just escaped some locked facility when we ran in dressed like this—me wearing my pink and white jammies and white bunny slippers with one ear missing on one of them.

We laughed so much we almost cried. We ordered the biggest cheese pizza they had. It was ginormous! The box they had on display was bigger than me! At least that's what it felt like back then.

The guy peeked over his shoulder back at us, like he wasn't sure if he trusted us to be alone in the room, before entering the kitchen with our order. We guessed what he would say to the chef at the back about us and laughed even louder at some of our suggestions.

Dad yelled to the guy that we'd be right back and grabbed me by the hand while running for the door. I didn't know where we were going, but I followed him with zero doubts in my heart. He told me it was quicker to go and grab the ice cream while we were waiting and then go straight home when they're done with our pizza.

We ran, hand in hand, down the street and around the corner to a small shop. And we got, not one, not two, but three different types of ice cream. All my favourites! I couldn't believe it.

Ice cream in one hand, the gigantic pizza in the other one, Dad shushed and winked at me before pushing the front door open.

I was certain I had the coolest dad in the world and nothing could convince me otherwise.

Mom had put on her pyjamas as well, and was waiting for us. The movie night could begin.

I almost didn't recognize our living room. The big corner sofa had been turned into the coziest lying area with a mountain of pillows and blankets for all of us. Mom had made us a DIY bed-table where we put the pizza and drinks. It was the coolest home theatre I'd ever seen.

The TV had been moved from its place to make room for the big "cinema screen" and a projector on the high shelf behind the couch showed a paused opening scene of "Tangled" on the wall.

Ah, we laughed so much that night!

"Tangled" is still my favourite movie. Even now, fifteen years later. And I have never since then gotten better pizza than the plain cheese one we ate that night.

Years later, I found out that Mom and Dad did these movie nights with Kelly and Benjamin as well while the other two were asleep, but we never knew back then. They asked us to keep it a secret. And we did. We all did. We all thought it was just for us.

And in that moment... That night... it was.

That’s my dad for you. My dad.

I know some people knew Richard the CEO or Richard the brother, the uncle, the friend and probably a few other versions I never met.

But to me... the man in plaid pyjamas will always be how I remember him.