Trip report.

Sorry for the unplanned hiatus. My small circle of readers has probably long since dissolved. I didn't get any e-mails asking me why I haven't been posting, though, so I guess no one cares.

I have been in North Carolina for a few days visiting Ms. Brick's sister's family. This consists of her sister, her sister's husband, and her sister's two kids, aged 3.7 and 1.5.

During this visit, one thing became clear:

If you have two children, and place both of them in a stroller like this one:



There is a 98.3% chance of the kid in the front seat getting kicked in the head, followed by the kid in the front seat crying, followed by the designated adult yelling "No!" and holding down the legs of the kid in the back seat, followed by the the kid in the back seat crying, followed by the designated adult letting go of the kid in the back seat's legs, followed by the kid in the front seat getting kicked in the head.

The first thing we did when we got there was go shopping. Yay. They didn't give me any other options. They could have at least said: "Okay, you can either come with us shopping or stay here, slit your wrists and do push-ups in alcohol." Nope, they just took me to a mall where I proceeded to chase after a 3.7 year-old while Ms. Brick and her sister shopped. Good times.

"Go play with your aunt, she wants to play with you," I would suggest. "No, you're more fun," he would say. And so it went, and Ms. Brick was free to look at shoes. I cannot disagree with or blame him for this attitude, for I have received several calls from Merriam-Webster over the years requesting the use of my picture for the definition of "fun."

Long ago I was established as the "cool uncle." There are certain advantages to this, chief among them being that you know you are the "cool uncle." Another plus to being the "cool uncle" is that the "uncool aunt" becomes jealous of you because of your high level of coolness and you're not even the kids' real uncle, while she is their real aunt.

The main disadvantage to being the "cool uncle" would be constantly being sought out to provide more fun. That gets tiring. Do you know how kick-ass sleeping kids are? Yeah, sleeping kids kick just about the most ass I can imagine. Then they wake up and want more fun. I didn't ask to be born with this superior ability to harness the power of fun, but I guess I have to live with it.

That was pretty much the trip. Running around and being fun while others' shopped. During this I learned that the person who invented the "put the kid on your shoulders" move didn't do so to do something fun for the kid. He did so to easily keep the kid in one place, while telling the kid: "Yeah! Won't it be fun to ride around on my shoulders? Woo-hoo! Isn't this fun? Look how tall you are! Wow! What? You want to get down? You can't get down, it's too fun up there! If you want to get down that means you don't like fun. You do like fun, don't you? Yeah, that's what I thought. Now stay up there and be happy."

Ms. Brick and her sister gave me a reprieve on Sunday. They went shopping and left me at home with the kids and their dad. He is cool. He bought me pizza. He is also way better at keeping the kids under control than their mom. She just gets flustered, yells at them, and makes things worse.

I just looked up the word "reprieve" to see if I used it correctly. I sure did.

We watched TV and saw the Broncos not get into the Super Bowl. The Colts didn't get into the Super Bowl first, though, so I still have bragging rights over Scott. Also, it's not like the Broncos haven't won the Super Bowl before so it's no big deal.

Monday we went shopping some more. I love shopping. Tuesday we went to the North Carolina version of Chipotle and got burritos. I must say that white teenagers from North Carolina really suck at wrapping burritos. They really need to hire Mexicans for that, but North Carolina doesn't have Mexicans.

Then we came home.

The trip was fun.