Brett Berk

Since July 4th weekend is all about fireworks, it seems like a perfect time for the Gay Uncle to relate the last–and most personally explosive–of his vacation anecdotes. It concerns a certain adult male family member losing his cool, and it is not Gunc’s Brother-in-Law Marty this time. He’s speaking of himself! Here’s the setting: G.U. is “enjoying” the last day of a week-long family trip, he’s seated in the back seat of a nauseatingly jauncy Jeep on twisty third-world roads en route to the far side of the island, hungover from the previous nights festivities (read: two games of go-fish with his cheating nieces), stomach-growlingly hungry. Since there is not enough room in the rental cars for all family members (?!?) he has a niece on his lap, as does his boyfriend Tal, and said girls have been bickering since before the engine started. During the ride, the Gay Uncles did their best to quell the conflict by engaging the beasties in a game Tal invented called “Recipe” in which someone mentions a food (a grapefruit, saltines, beef jerky) and then each player in turn gets to do something to the ingredient (put it in a blender, add pig blood, freeze it into a slushy, slice it razor thin and layer it on your face). The game went pretty well, save the fact that the nieces kept trying to kill one another with their recipes (“Then Violet eats it all and dies.”) and eventually had to be called on this account. By the time their car finally arrived at the beach, and G.U. and his lapmate piled out, the tension was thick, so when his partner started screaming for Tal’s partner to pass her her pink flip-flops from the floor well, G.U. decided to intervene. “Violet, can you please give me Brooke’s shoes.” Amped up, Violet grinned and grabbed the sandals, and before he knew what had happened, she flung one of them out of the car. This wasn’t at all what her tired and patient uncle had asked her to do, but worse than this, the shoe hit him right between the eyes, denting his (intentionally cheap) sunglasses. Last straw, meet camel’s back. Gunc’s nostrils flared, his pulse quickened, and he asked the question one should never ask a misbehaving child. “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?” he hollered. “I asked you to hand me the shoes, not throw them at my face.” His niece shrugged, unconcerned. “Sorry…?” she said, with utter insincerity. “Fake apology not accepted,” Gunc replied, turning away. “Now pick up your cousin’s shoes and hand them to her like I asked you to.” The Gay Uncle felt bad for losing his cool–and particularly for the idiotic rhetorical question, something he abhors–but his niece remained calm through their picnic lunch, and played with her cousins independently and without incident for the remainder of the afternoon. He is planning on going into full Nazi mode at the very start of the next family trip.