So my brother and his wife are having a baby in a couple of months-YAY!
But I wonder if they’ve really considered the long-term ramifications of this decisions, in that they are bringing an innocent, defenseless child into the world who will have no choice but to be related to me. And I really think we all just need to stop and take a minute to discuss exactly Why I Should Never Be Allowed To Be Anyone’s Aunt, as evidenced by the following data that I’ve been carefully collecting over the past 37 years.
1. My favorite word in the entire English language is “ass”.
2. When my husband goes out of town I stop eating, having judged the whole process to be “unnecessary” and “frivolous”.
3. My preferred method of dealing with recalcitrant electronics is to run them over with my car.
4. If it weren’t for my husband, I would totally forget the need to wear pants.
5. When faced with more than 3 choices of Ranch Dressing at the grocery store, I am immediately plunged into a full-blown, existential crisis.
6. I do not share. AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME. Also: no one is allowed to touch any of my stuff. Ever. Sometimes, not even my husband.
7. Sometimes I accidentally wear white after Labor Day.
8. My husband and I have nicknamed one of our cat toys “The Penis”, due to various anatomical similarities with the real thing, and enjoy making completely inappropriate remarks whenever one of the cats goes to play with it.
9. I have made known far and wide the requirement that I never be sent any pictures of babies who are “fresh out of the chute”.
10. I am pretty much just 10 long fingernails away from becoming Howard Hughes.
And those are just the first things I thought of off the top of my head. I mean, we have really only scratched the surface of this thing.
But of course, it’s too late to do anything about it now. And I suppose that I could just transform myself into Mysterious Aunt Jenny, the one who is never spoken of at family gatherings, the one who, when their name is ever mentioned in conversation makes the whole room fall silent and awkwardly look away. (And now that I think about it, there’s a chance that I might already have done that, given the existence of this blog. I’ll have to check into that later.)
So I’ll keep you posted on how this whole thing goes. And I will end this now with a special note to my other sister-in-law, for when it’s her turn:
CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED.
Still giggling about the “running electronics over with your car” thing…that would make great video. 🙂
Speaking from experience, one of the advantages of being the “crazy Aunt” is that you are never trusted to be left alone with the little darlings. My sister stopped asking me to babysit when I suggested that the sticky little hands on her 2 year old would be great for cleaning up the dust bunnies under the couch. “Just send him under there, tell him it’s a fun game or something…”
Fabulous list. I think most of these will make you an awesome, *eccentric* aunt that will broaden the little whippersnapper’s horizons. Yes, I used the word whippersnapper and YES, I am 138,000 years old.
I don’t share either and no one, *including* my SO gets to touch my stuff for fear of unleashing the screaming banshee of “MIIIIIIIINE!”, so you’re not alone there.
Dig your blog. 🙂
Of course, being related to you, the baby might even grow up to be basketcase-ier than you! Or worse, become an engineer!
About #4… There but for the grace of my Wonder Woman go I.
@David-that makes me feel so much better.
@SPG-Oh man, I never even THOUGHT of that possibility. Thank you. I will cling to that tiny shred of hope.
@Steph-thanks 🙂 Also, my husband is afraid to even come into the part of the house where I have my office, because when he does he takes his socks off and throws them on the floor, and then the skin starts to melt off my face and I bore holes into him with the hot laser beams that have replaced my eyes.
@Patty K-that is brilliant!! I am totally stealing that!