Reservoir Uncles

What's the deal with Uncles anyway? Uncles are our go to family members for sources of secondhand knowledge and inexplicable insanity. If you're telling a story which is false and/or embarrassing and need a proxy to divert suspicion away from yourself, you use your uncle because lets face it, you're reading my blog: you don't have any friends. So uncles are the perfect scapegoat for whatever bullshit you feel like telling someone. They're close enough to you for your secondhand experience to be legitimate and distant enough that it would be too much effort for someone to prove you otherwise. Most of the time, mentioning an uncle gives you god-like powers of credibility.

Uncles are always capable of doing all the cool stuff your own dad is too lame to do. Everyone has an uncle who served in a war. Everyone has an uncle who shows up to family gatherings drunker than Churchill quoting Hemingway. Everyone has an uncle with a cool motorcycle. Everyone has an uncle who is secretly a pedophile. Whether they are single, married with children, or mentally challenged, Uncles are not bound by the laws of reality like your dad is, and not even science can explain why.

Despite their reality bending powers, Uncles get such a bad rep, especially in the media. Gotta problem with the government? Screw Uncle Sam! Black guy who sold out? He's an Uncle Tom! Surprised by something trivial? You're a Monkey's Uncle. You got terrible taste in music? Listen to Uncle Kracker! You're getting your ass beat? Say Uncle! Wanna ruin both your rapping and acting career? Make Uncle P!When did we as a society begin to lose so much respect for our parent's brothers?

Why are our cartoons flooded with uncles? Every adult cartoon character apparently has a floozy brother or sister randomly popping out offspring and dropping them off with their relatives. And we never see these siblings. The worse offender are those damned Ducks. Donald Duck is the uncle of Huey, Dewey, and Pop, who is in turn uncled by Scrooge McDuck. Where are all of their fucking parents?? My guess is that Scrooge had all of them murdered so that he can be the legal guardian.

There is no "love" in "deductible"

I have two nieces and for some reason, the only god given uncle rights I've acquired are the ability to spend too much money on birthday and Christmas presents and the uncanny power of baby sitting. I know I have a long way to go in life, but I've been an uncle for at least 12 years and I haven't gotten any of the cool uncle powers yet. I guess i'll have to earn them myself and show up to my Uncle's Thanksgiving party drunk. Wait. That's another uncle perk I don't have. This is bullshit!

The one consolation is that those two fine nieces of mine love spending time with me and bring joy to my heart. I guess at the end of the day, those are all of the powers that I need.

At the very least, the powers of the Pumaman.