Uncle Richie Is A Wicked Wizard

Growing up, I was not a computer-wielding gamer nerd. In fact, my parents never bought me any computers or the latest game consoles, and well... they wouldn't even spring for cable! We were lucky to have "touch tone" on the phone (and I actually have one friend who's parent's wouldn't pay the charge for touch tone). Living simply is a good thing and all, but I like a few luxuries ;)

These days, though, it seems that Kids are eyeballs-deep in microchips. They are the technology generation more or less. Some of you guys think it's sad to say "Remember Vinyl?", now we are starting to feel the burn when a kid asks "What?? CDs?!?"

"I'll get you next time Aunt Jackie!!!"

My husband's (younger) brother has three children, one girl from his first relationship, and two younger boys from his current wife. The youngest is more of a wild child (hence his Mohawk) while the eldest boy is the Gaming Geek of his clan.

When they were visiting over the weekend, he sat on the couch and engaged me in a role-playing character creation session in which he asked "Uncle Richie" to choose a side and alignment, and me as well.

"Uncle Richie," he inquired, "Do you choose Fire, Earth or Darkest?" (I think he meant darkness or perhaps shadow **ehhem clears throat and tries not to sound like an adopted nerd**).

I should probably pause to insert a bit of morning history, previous to this conversation, Uncle Richie and I were having a "play fight" in which he was machine gunning my face, specifically eye region with rapid firings of his MIDDLE finger. Yes, he was flipping me off in hyper-mode. So I tried to catch and bite his fingers to no avail, so my only defense was to slap his hands. This did nothing to stop his incessant bird-throwing. Therefore, my last resort in defending my honor was a fist-punch to his upper thigh. With that, he turned into a pitiful creature whining about spousal abuse and arguing that his particular irritations were non-physical, and that I was evil to resort to the physical abuse of punching him.

It was not even a hard punch, I promise you. I gave him maybe 1/4th of my strength luckily... Plus, I'm a girl... But the kids had camped out in the livingroom, and both of them were planning on coming in there to "rescue" Aunt Jackie from rotten Uncle Richie... lol!!! Good stuff. ~

Anyways, upon being asked what powers he chose, Unk stopped his conversation with his brother to choose Fire, or maybe it was Fire mixed with "darkest"... I can't remember. Then he turned to me with an innocent toothy grin and said "Aunt Jackie, do you choose Fire, Earth or Darkest?" I said, "I love nature and would love to harness its great power, so I will choose Earth."

He giggled as evilly as a seven year old boy can, and said... "Ok!!! So you can use your roots to wrap around Uncle Richie and strangle him!" Then he sadly realized that Fire can burn branches and roots, and informed me of this fact. So I said, "Oh yeah... that is true. I guess I better be Earth mixed with Darkest!" This pleased my nephew and ultimately I beat Mr. J at his own game of fiery evil.

At my victory, Little Joe laughed wholeheartedly and exclaimed, "Yay!!! Yeahhh... Uncle Richie Is A Wicked Wizard!!"

This is what we called him for the rest of the day. Joe even drew a picture of him with horns and a funny beard which actually looked a great deal like him!

The moral of this story? Aunts & Uncles can often play the part of a hero in a child's life, especially children who lean towards being D&D nerds... and as well, may it be a lesson to Wicked Wizard Uncle Richie and he will know that his fire power, while it may be hot, can never match the likes of my Earthen strength and my powers of darkest.