My uncle (dad’s brother) moved out of state many years ago, so we rarely get to see him. By pure chance, his job had him come to our home city recently for a conference, so we naturally took the chance to catch up.

My dad asks him about his job, and this is how we find out he’s a crane operator for one of those giant garbage disposal incinerators. My dad asks the “obvious” follow-up question to that:

Dad: “So… have you found any bodies?”

Uncle: “No, thank f***! But, there was one incident where I had to move this massive wardrobe, and I thought a body flopped out of it. It turned out it was one of those creepy CPR training dummies. Scared the living s*** out of me, I was halfway to hitting the emergency stop and had my phone in hand to call the cops before I realized what it was.”

My uncle then rolls his eyes.

Uncle: “[Uncle’s Wife] thought it was hysterical that something made to help deal with heart attacks nearly gave me an actual one.”

My uncle is a tech bro, and his brother, my dad, is ‘just’ the shift supervisor in a factory. This creates some tension between them.

My uncle is more financially successful than my father, but my father is married, with me and my sister as his children. He also plays bass guitar once every couple of months in a ‘band’ of four other people about as old as him at bars, and weddings, and stuff, while my uncle can’t find a woman (nor a man) to tolerate him and has no hobbies outside of his job, buying needlessly expensive things, and watching TV.

They have very different definitions of a successful life, and both see themselves as successful and the other as a failure. 

Anyway, my uncle is at a family gathering and he’s bragging about his smart bed. He is going on and on about how his bed has adjustable settings and an air conditioner built in, and how he can control it from his smartphone. He keeps trying to get my dad to buy one, but it’s absolutely not something we can afford. Finally, my dad snaps at him.

Dad: “Let me tell you this. I will never buy a smart bed. In fact, for my entire life, the only reason that my bed will not be the dumbest thing in the house is because you’ve come to visit.”

My uncle did not appreciate that reply and walked off.

But the story gets better because the smart bed malfunctioned and started a fire. My uncle had to stay with us while his house was being repaired, and the whole time he was staying with us, my dad needled him about the smart bed and pointed out the features of our dumb one.

My brother is back from a military tour, so the whole family has gathered for a meal to enjoy his company. This includes the one bad uncle that all families have.

Uncle: “Hey, [Brother], now that the Republicans are back in power, is the military less gay?”

My Dad: “[Uncle], careful now.”

Uncle: “What? I’m just asking.”

Brother: “It’s as gay as it’s always been and always will be, [Uncle]. These days, the only ones who care are the unemployed fat-a** civilians who have nothing better to do than shout at the TV!”

Uncle: “I gotta job!”

This is true. [Uncle] has a job, technically, as a school bus driver, but is on unpaid suspension while he is under investigation for possible DUI.

Me: *Trying to turn the meal around.* “Anyway, [Brother], now that you’re back for a few weeks, do you want to—”

Uncle: “—The military was better when it was that don’t ask, don’t tell thing! Now it’s all feelings and marines making TikToks and having pronouns!”

My Dad: “[Uncle], that’s enough! F****** stop!”

Uncle: “Yeah, well f*** you! And f*** your pronouns! We didn’t need them when I was a kid!”

Grandma: *Butting in out of nowhere.* “Weren’t your favorite cartoons as a kid, He-Man and She-Ra?”

Uncle was confused, some of us laughed, and I was FINALLY able to change the subject. I don’t know why we allow [Uncle] to come to these things anymore…

Related:
When They’re Not Pro Pronoun, Part 4
When They’re Not Pro Pronoun, Part 3
When They’re Not Pro Pronoun, Part 2
When They’re Not Pro Pronoun

Content Warning: Injury detail

My now passed uncle, let’s call him Gunnar, was a kind and wonderful, but stubborn man who had a long history of weird injuries. This was his worst one, and I got permission from his wife to tell this story as a cautionary tale. A lot of details are omitted for the sake of anonymity.

We all lived quite close to each other, in separate houses but within shouting distance. Gunnar was splitting firewood with a forty-ton hydraulic wood splitter, a piston that pushes a one-meter log against a hardened steel blade to split it with forty metric tons of force. This beast of a machine came with several almost idiot proof safety features, chief among them being that you had to push two levers half a meter apart to move the piston; it was impossible by design to have a hand or even a foot anywhere dangerous, even if you tried.

Gunnar had, in his quite finite wisdom, decided to bypass the levers and somehow make the piston move on its own every minute or so. That way, he could just drop in a piece of wood, it would split itself, and he could load in the other one without having to go around the splitter and push the levers. Everyone had pointed out this insane safety risk to him, and I had offered many times to help him so we could do it quickly and safely, but Gunnar thought his way of doing it was the best way.

One day, my middle son (fourteen years old at the time) burst into the kitchen and yelled that Gunnar needed help. He hadn’t seen the accident, but Gunnar sounded really hurt. I called an ambulance while I ran off to help Gunnar, whom I could hear screaming with an almost inhuman sound the moment I opened the door.

His working glove had gotten stuck between the wood and the blade, and the self-moving piston had amputated three of his fingers. His glove was still on his hand, with his poor fingers still in the destroyed glove, dangling from the shredded remains of the glove, while blood streamed from his hand. Blood was everywhere, smeared and sprayed as instinct had made him try to save his fingers, and Gunnar was screaming at the top of his lungs. It was the most gruesome sight my squeamish self had ever seen, and I lost my lunch then and there.

My wife, thankfully an experienced nurse, had run with me and did her best to stop the bleeding and save his fingers. The ambulance arrived quickly and brought him to the hospital, where he spent ten days and underwent surgery to reattach his fingers. They could only save his long finger and little finger, and his long finger remained stiff, hurting, and uncooperative for the rest of his life. 

We visited him after a few days and after some flowers, chocolates, and niceties, my wife asked:

Wife: “So, Gunnar, what have we learned?”

And Gunnar very solemnly said:

Uncle Gunnar: “I have learned my lesson. As God the Father himself and all his angels are my witness, I’ll never work with gloves ever again.”

And he never did wear any kind of hand protection ever again, and he left life with the same number of fingers as he left this story.

I’m primarily indigenous (Apache). When I first hooked up with my (now ex) wife, we went to the Midwest to introduce me to her family. I had the following exchange with her ignorant, racist great aunt:

Great Aunt: “Where are you from?”

Me: “California.”

Great Aunt: “No, where are you from?”

Me: “Santa Monica.”

Great Aunt: “What I mean is, where are your parents from?”

Me: “Colorado. Want to try for the grandparents?”

Clearly, my great-aunt-in-law wanted me to say Guatemala or something. My ex was upset with me and thought I was unnecessarily smart-a**ed with her ignorant, racist great aunt.

CORRECTION: The mention of ‘great-aunt’ at the end of the story has been changed to ‘great-aunt-in-law’.