Just Kidding

          “Merry Christmas” is a cliche, yet thoroughly appropriate and wonderful way to start December 25th. “Look, here are pictures of your parents during happier times” is not. Guess how the morning began?

His Aunt never knew what to say. She was the middle child. Her older sister the success, her younger brother the delinquent, therefore all attention magnetized away from her. Luckily she learned at a young age to take this like a champ, to triumph above it all.

Just kidding! It ruined her life. She felt a constant need to manufacture attention, and today it came in the form of reminding her nephew of his parents’ divorce. Luckily he could sidestep this trap and head on over to the beautiful tree, decked out with amazing ornaments passed down from generation to generation, circled with layers of presents, flawlessly selected after countless top secret phone calls, email chains, and direct messages on twitter.

            Just kidding! No tree. No presents. Maybe a twitter tutorial later; he had become the family’s pro-bono 24/7 IT technician; a role he cherished, much in the same way a football team cherishes its kicker after missing an extra point to lose the Super Bowl.

At least a fancy dinner reservation awaited that night. Unfortunately the plan was to split the bill. This wasn’t a white Christmas. This was a red Christmas. This was Communism. Can you blacklist an Aunt?

Interesting question. Maybe his Grandma, the host of Christmas 2012, would know the answer. This was all hypothetical of course, because her deafness had reached Jedi levels. Going to her house was like attending a lecture series. Most lecture series at least have Q&A’s, but at this series, every answer out of his Grandma’s mouth was the same: “WHAAAAT???”. He loved his Grandma. He just wished she could will herself to take those hearing aids in for readjustment. Why couldn’t she do that? She took her car in for maintenance and that was always a breeze.

Just kidding! That was always life threatening. Driving with Grandma was like skydiving

 with a 92-year-old parachute. On the bright side, she nominated herself as the wheelwoman for dinner, so if it turned Kamikaze he might not have to fork out that fifty dollars after all. In the meantime there he stood, in an empty corner perfect for a tree, reminiscing about his parents’ divorce. But what would he do between now and the Pinko dinner? Only one option. He would suck it up, put all the family craziness aside, and humor his Aunt and Grandma.
             Just kidding! He’d fake another nap. A brillant strategy. Getting dicey though thanks to overuse. Five naps in three days; those were great-grandpa stats. They were nervous about his health. They needed him to be healthy so he could return soon, preferably New Year’s Eve. He could set up their new printer. He’d be open to that idea...
             J.U.S.T. KI.D.D.I.N.G.