History Repeating

Whenever I see my nieces and my nephew, I can't help but be the crazy uncle who pits them against each other in a cut-throat game of candyland or hide and seek. The winner often gets something like a trip to the movies or the toy store, while the loser is awarded with oodles of shame and dishonor. I never let them forget it!

Recently, I hosted a game of "whoever launches their sky dancers the farthest, wins a prize" with me as the goader and my nieces as the contestants. The younger of the two lost horribly and we looked at her and gave her a simultaneous "BOOOOOOOO!" She walked away trying to hold back the tears. Of course I apologized and took both of them to the toy store! Contrary to what my mother constantly tells me, I'm not Satan. Seeing my niece suffer like that made me think back to what my own uncle used to do when I was a kid.

My uncle was the human equivalent of eating cereal with spoiled milk. Thinking of it makes you sick to your stomach and it's got this weird smell that makes you want to puke. He used to be in the Navy so he was really big on discipline. Disgusted by my latchkey ways, he took it upon himself to make me a soldier. I had to hold encyclopedias until my arms fell off. One time he even pushed me into a pool, knowing that I couldn't swim, just so that his kids (who were younger than me) could save me and look like heroes. I grew up with a lot of animosity toward him, and it took horrifying form at my sister's wedding when I publicly humiliated him and he had to leave because he was so upset and embarrassed.

I'd be really pissed if I were the one being driven out of a wedding by the niece I tormented as a child. So to avoid this possible fate, I've decided to be a different kind of uncle. I'm going to be the uncle who makes fun of their friends. Oh lord, don't get me started on that neighbor girl who comes around during dinner time and asks if she can spend the night. Jesus Christ, and that boy who kissed my niece on the cheek on the playground? Don't they know that boys have cooties?!?