Rent-An-Uncle

The other weekend I was invited to the park by my good friends Sean and Devon. They have a 5-year-old son, James and a 1-year-old daughter Leah. So, I spent a merry afternoon playing soccer, throwing a football, running, chasing, throwing Frisbees, playing catch, wrestling, and even occasionally doing all of the above at the same time.

Once the day was done, meaning James was sufficiently tired, we went our separate ways. It then occurred to me, as I was driving to the store to buy food for the week (soda, chips, popcorn, gum, and a banana), that I was a really good uncle.

No, scratch that. I’m a great uncle. In fact, I’m so good at it, I should do it professionally. That’s right: Rent-An-Uncle.

Now, this is not some babysitting service. I don’t care when your kid needs to nap or if they have to eat all their prunes or whatever. At Rent-An-Uncle, we do not care about that sort of thing. We’re here for three reasons:

1. To be able to play until someone vomits
2. To teach them inappropriate language
3. To subtly mess with their heads (ie, telling them boogers are their brains melting)

I am uniquely qualified, in that:

1. I watch all the cartoons (I know who Captain Rex is)
2. I can play any and all games, including all the consoles, outdoor ones, and ones made up on the spot
3. Intellectually speaking, I’m pretty much on their level

NOTE: I will not play Candy Land. This is not a game. It’s more like torture with dice. It’s the only game I’ve played with a niece where after thirty minutes she looked at me and said ‘Do we have to keep playing this?’

Now, obviously, I will respect certain ground rules. If you don’t want me throwing your child into a Pitch Back, let me know so I can do it when you’re not looking.

Also, let me know what level of violence is acceptable, ranging from Simple Roughhousing to Stairs are Indoor Slides to A Little Blood Never Hurt Anyone.

At the end of the day, I’ll hand you back what’s left of your child, you’ll hand me a wad of cash and we’ll part happily.

I think it’s a plan.

Cheers,
-Jason

Fire Bad!: Part 1

I happened to run across a show the other day about ghosts. Specifically, a house in the east was being haunted by the ghosts of Civil War soldiers. The bit I saw wasn’t really specific about which side the ghosts had been on, but apparently they were rather upset about something (possibly about being dead) and created a lot of mischief and generally just creeped everyone out.

The family seemed kind of embarrassed about the whole thing, but they did allow a film crew to camp out in their living room for three days as they tried to get footage.

I can imagine it went something like this:

Director: Quick! What was that!!!?

Father: Ummm, pretty sure that was a squirrel.

Director: Oh. A ghost squirrel?

Father: No, a regular, alive-type squirrel.

Director: Damn. Wait, what’s that noise?

Father: My wife’s hair dryer.

Director: A ghost hair dryer?

Father: Pretty sure, no.

Director: Shoot. Wait! Oh my god! What is that thing!!!?

Father: That’s my daughter.

Director: An undead-

Father: No! How long are you going to be here again?

Director: Until we get some decent footage.

Father: Oh, my bad. Yes, that’s the ghost of my poor, dead daughter.

Daughter: Daddy!

I’ve seen a couple of these shows and inevitably the announcer must make a somber announcement about how ghosts are created. Something like: ‘And when people die by violence or with a strong, negative emotion like anger, they can become ghosts.’

Well, duh.

But that seems to be rather broad criteria. I mean, if I died while watching a Barney video, I’d probably come back pretty pissed off as well.
Tomorrow: Part 2