The Gay Uncle is down in Key West this week, visiting with his sister, mom, and nieces. As part of their ongoing tradition of “Uncle Time”–dating back to when the girl could first scream the words UNCLE TIME!!–Gunc and niece Amber (now age 9) spent the afternoon together. They had ice cream, they had pizza, they visited the Aquarium, they watched an insane faux-French man juggle cats on the Sunset Pier. And, like any ideal visit with a pre-tween girl, they went shopping for crappy trinkets at the mall-famous store Claire’s. Later on, he met his sister Roxy for a drink or four, and they eventually got around to discussing U.T. Gunc described how he managed to embarrass the girl–not a very difficult practice with a nine year old–by swishing about, talking loud, and forcing her to toss tips into the buckets of the sunset performers. This was all old hat to Roxy, who shares her older brother’s…performative personality. What she wanted to know was how the G.U. managed to deal with Claire’s a source of endless tension/desire for the mother/daughter team. “Whenever we go there, she wants everything in the store. She nags, she wines, she drags her feet. We end up spending so much time, that by the end, I’m frustrated and don’t even want to get her anything.”
Gunc explained that the trick, like most things with young kids, was to be concrete, and proactive, and set expectations in advance. “Before we even walked in the door,” he told Roxy, “I turned to Amber, and I said, clearly, You have five bucks, and five minutes. If you go over either one, we’re out. She raced around the store, did the math herself, and ended up with some cheap, dangly animal keychains.” He didn’t add that he was campaigning for a fake-rhinestone bedecked headband, or a scrunchy with synthetic blond hair all around. There’s always more Uncle Time.