Uncled

Part 1 of a 4-part series inspired by Ross Gay's The Book of Delights

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Nothing says fun uncle energy like a slick white Hyundai i30, with dual exhaust, racing details, and the personal number plate: UNCLED. My style is more pastel athleisure and long curly hair, but nevertheless, personalised number plates are an unexpected and sometimes all-too-revealing delight:

A tiny car, no bigger than a gym locker, with the plates: HEH3HE? Delightful.

A black SUV with the pink plates: WIFEY-01, driven by a goateed man? Gah!

I was stopped behind UNCLED at the red light, on my way to see my second cousin, once removed (large Dutch Catholic family we are) and his son, who would be my… nephew? As UNCLED turned right at the green, and I left, I pondered: what does it mean to be uncled?

Once, my 3 year old niece, my sister’s daughter, moved by my stirring rendition of 10 Cheeky Monkeys Bouncing on the Bed, used her expanding vocabulary and loose grasp of family structure to compliment me: you’re a good big sister, Uncle Dave. One monkey fell off and hit his head. Mother called the doctor and the doctor said: you’ve been uncled.

This same niece is turning 16 today. The freedom of a first car beckons. I thought I could offer some money, like my aunties and uncles did for me. She politely refused. Turns out she’s got fast-food-job money and a strong grasp of compound interest. I just got a notice to vacate my rental. How can I be uncled then?

My other niece is my only friend on BeReal. I’m proud.

(Don’t feel sad if you don’t know what BeReal is)

But am I sad, or uncled? Or both?

The daughters of a friend put the nagging question succinctly. After taking them (8 and 10 years old at the time) to a kids theatre show, and after post-show ice-cream and daring rope swings across the creek, on the way back to home to Mum and Dad, the youngest turned to me and said:

BUT WHAT ARE YOU TO US?

Uncled?

I just felt lucky to be in their sibling orbit. Their youthful curiousity. Their blunt questioning of family relations. This phrase is now an ongoing joke between us. WHAT ARE YOU TO US? is a terrifying reminder that relationships change.

When all my niblings were younger my visits triggered dizzying delight and hyper-ventilated show and tells and epic dance-offs. Now that they’re all teenagers I want to impress them way too much.

My BeReal niece is re-watching Friends in her living room. I send back an artful, less than real photo of cool laneway Naarm/Melbourne to inspire her to move to here. Desperately uncled.

I wrote a comedy birthday song for another niece and couldn’t sing it to her while her boyfriend was there. Embarrassed and uncled.

I meet the boyfriends and immediately want to mispronounce their names. My Dad called my sister’s first boyfriend Truck, Trench, and even Crunch (his name was Trent). Turns out I didn’t need to try. They’re all inner-city kids with unique inner-city names that I can’t remember. Forgetful and boring, uncled Dave.

When UNCLED turned right at the traffic lights, where we’re they off to in their souped up i30? How were they uncled?

I once fell into a conversation about uncles with a First Nations artist — a painter of emus. They told me that in their family it was often the aunties and uncles who disciplined the children. The reason being that the kids behaviour often mirrored their parents and was therefore sometimes hidden in the blind spot of self-recognition.

No one in my family would say I was in charge of discipline. BeReal is no place for corrective life lessons. And besides, what could the baby of the family discipline anyone about?

(side delight: at work a new staff member was going around the lunch table asking the mothers about their families. She turned to me: Dave, do you have any kids? In my best shocked baby voice, I replied: Danielle, I’m a baaaaby. How old are you? My voice returned to a lower, adult register: 38)

I don’t have any experience in school house punishment. But I do have the discipline of silliness, of the left turn, of rolling around on the floor, of unashamed joy, of emptying my energy into a game until I am completely and utterly uncled. I’m at my most delightful around kids 8 years and under. The temptation of adult respectability is forgotten.

I pulled up outside my cousin’s house. My nephew, almost four, had seen me perform the week before. The show? Mr. Snotbottom: Attack of the Zombie Boogers. I was Zombie Booger #2. (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve delighted in saying this). I feared he might be afraid of my Zombie turn — quite the opposite. There was an idolising glaze in his eyes, as if to say, you were up there, on stage, being funny and silly for all those people, and now you’re here, in my living room, and you can perform the entire show again, just for me.

Previously he had been reticent around me. And now it was:

Be the zombie booger!

Be the Boogzilla monster!

Like a jester king, I had been crowned, and uncled.