Hundred Hand

I don’t know if everyone has “that uncle” in their family, but I sure do. No, I don’t mean the uncle that molests you, I mean the uncle that talks your ear off, always talks in superlatives, and is painfully ignorant about the subjects about which you are speaking.

I recently attended my family’s Easter get-together, and it was generally pleasant, except for that one uncle. We play a game at these family functions where everyone tries to avoid that uncle as much as possible so you don’t get trapped in the never-ending boring conversation. I pretty much lost that game, having gotten trapped several times. Usually, if the function is hosted at my parents’ house they’ll tell me that they need my help in the kitchen if they see that I’m trapped, but without the home-court advantage I was helpless.

This uncle, who is easily the largest person in the family (though certainly not the tallest) started as always by telling me about how amazing this diet he is doing is. He revealed to me the key to losing weight. This year’s key was different from last year’s, and not surprisingly, and he still weighs the same. I guess last year’s key was wrong, but I’m sure now he’s got the right idea. When he’s not telling me about how much his health is improving, or about how healthy he was in college, he’s telling me about his various medical problems. He walks with a cane, and has to carry around a small oxygen tank with him when he goes outside, and I don’t even think he’s 50 yet. Every problem he’s had has been because of food. Food even keeps him from being able to work. You see, he was a chef after college, but then he got some kind of disability that prevents him from being able to cook anymore (it’s called getting tired of cooking) and so he’s been getting disability money for a living since I was a little kid (the last 15 years or so).

So all of this is expected, and somewhat tolerable, but then he decided to start talking about my career and about how tough the job market is. His quote, “You’re a computer operator right? A dime a dozen, is that what they say?”. Trying not to be rude, I explained that I’m a programmer and that all of my CS friends are gainfully employed and generally valued, and assured him it was skilled labor. He took that to mean that I was specialized. I guess you could call me a specialized computer operator if that title even still existed and 99% of the world didn’t operate computers as part of their job. I guess I’m a computer operator that chose application development as my specialization, whereas the computer operator at McDonalds chose order entry as his specialization. Nearly the same thing.

Do you guys have any of those uncles? Feel free to bitch about them in the comments, I need to feel like I’m not alone on this one.