My nephew was somewhere around sixth grade when this story took place. [Nephew], like his father and others in our family, has ADHD — an inattentive variant, in his case. He was very smart and tended to ace all his tests, but he seemed to view his homework as unneeded busywork since he was doing so well without it. My brother had tried numerous things to try to get better homework completion — with very little success. [Nephew] is very intrinsically motivated; external rewards or punishments seemed to have little effect in motivating him. In fact, he got quite creative with wiggling out of any of the more extreme attempts to force him to complete his work.

My family was visiting my brother’s family for the holidays during winter break in school. We had just had a very busy day visiting various museums and events in DC the prior day, so this day was intended to be a lazy day indoors to recover. I came downstairs to see my son and [Nephew] who is a few years older, in front of the computer. [Nephew] was explaining a game he was playing to my son, and my son was aptly listening, up until he switched to begging to be allowed to play himself. After some very deep thought, [Nephew] finally relented.

Nephew: “Okay, fine. I suppose I should do my math anyway. I’ll start a new game for you, but I can’t help as much as I usually do since I’ll be doing my homework, too.”

A little later, after getting his cousin started on his game:

Nephew: “Uncle [My Name], did you see my backpack? I left it here.”

Me: “No, I don’t think so, but if I had to guess, your mom put it in your room to clean up down here.”

Just as he was headed upstairs to check his room, his dad (my brother) came downstairs.

Brother: “Hey, [Nephew], you’re not playing on the computer for once?”

Me: “He was very polite, letting [Son] play for a bit.”

Father: “Sounds like a great time to start on your homework, then!”

Nephew: “School doesn’t start for like a week still.”

Father: “Yeah, but if you keep putting it off, you’ll never start it. best to get it done now so I don’t have to keep pestering you all week.”

Nephew: “I’ll get to it. I’m hungry right now.”

[Nephew] went about ignoring his father’s pestering, making a big deal about getting food in the kitchen instead, and then took up the seat [Son] had vacated, playing backseat driver to [Son]’s playing of the game. 

I have enough experience with ADHD to know that sometimes a polite reminder can help when a kid gets distracted from a task, so I tried to help a little with getting things done.

Me: “[Nephew], didn’t you find your backpack?”

Nephew: “No, I stopped looking. I’m not doing my homework now.”

Me: “I thought you were going to do it while [Son] played. What changed?”

Nephew: “Dad asked me to do it.”

Me: “Why would….”

About this time, [Brother] came back up from the basement where he had gone to fetch something. [Nephew] clammed up, seeming to desperately want me to not say anything with his father around. Since I wanted to keep my Cool Uncle designation, I kept my mouth shut, too.

Over the next few hours, [Brother] continued to pester [Nephew] about homework every forty minutes or so, making it clear that his intent was to be annoying enough that his son would do it just to shut him up — a goal that did not appear to be making any progress.

I finally caught [Nephew] when his father wasn’t around later that day.

Me: “Okay, [Brother] is gone. Are you going to tell me now why you said you can’t do your homework if asked to do it?”

Nephew: “You heard him today, right? He’s trying to annoy me into doing it.”

Me: “Yeah…”

Nephew: “So, if I do it, he will decide it worked and keep doing it! I don’t want to deal with that every day. I’ll only do my homework if he hasn’t asked me to do it recently, so he doesn’t think being annoying is working.”

Me: “Ahh, I see now. How’s that strategy worked for you so far?”

Nephew: “It’s a lot harder to get anything done! I mostly have to do my work on the bus because he never stops annoying me during the evening, so I can’t do it at home. One of my teachers has already complained that my handwriting is sloppy now because it’s hard to write on a bus. I can’t wait until he gives up on annoying me already.”

Me: “What makes you think he will give up?”

Nephew: “He always forgets about it and gives up eventually. I just have to make sure he doesn’t think it’s working.”

Me: “I guess you have this all figured out, then, huh? If you want, I could distract your dad for a few minutes so you can get up to your backpack without him asking you about homework right now, though.”

Nephew: *Sounding slightly resigned* “Oh, I guess I should… Fine, I’ll go start it.”

I played interference for [Nephew] as promised, and later — after swearing [Brother] to secrecy about who his informant was — I relayed to him what [Nephew] had told me. It’s rough when a middle-schooler outthinks you, but I think he was willing to admit his current plan was proving counterproductive.

For the record, [Brother] never did figure out a good means to get his son to commit to completing his homework, despite many, many attempts. Luckily for him, though, he didn’t need to. Sometime around the latter half of high school, [Nephew] got a few mediocre grades on tests, and suddenly, his homework completion problem fixed itself. Turns out he just needed to be convinced he needed his homework to actually learn before he was willing to work at it. He now has a good-paying job as a programmer — the job he had been telling everyone he would have since he was seven.

My uncle is extremely distractible and unobservant. I could tell a ton of stories about him either not noticing or immediately forgetting something obvious, but this is one of the most egregious examples.

I’m sitting at my computer when my uncle walks up behind me.

Uncle: “Hey, [My Name], how’s [Website we’re working on together] going? Can you show me what you’ve gotten done?”

Me: “Sure, let me bring it up.” 

I turn back to the computer for literally five seconds, just long enough to open my web browser.

Me: “So, I got the login… system…”

I turn back around while speaking, only to see an empty room.

Me: “…[Uncle]?”

I found him vacuuming a nearby room. Somehow in the — again, LITERALLY — five seconds I was facing away and not talking to him, he’d forgotten that he’d asked me a question and wandered off. I’d be worried that he had dementia or a brain tumor or something, except Mom swears he’s always been like this.

It is Memorial Day in the USA, which is a day for honoring and mourning military personnel who have died while serving in the US armed forces. Our family has a lot of members of the military, so we always attend a memorial service at a military cemetery, and then gather in a park for a big BBQ/picnic after.

We set up in a nice spot under the shade of a large tree (we always try to get this spot every year).

Many of my family members served or are actively serving in the Army. Another group of veterans approaches, but it appears they have been drinking and their body language is immediately aggressive. A large guy from the group approaches.

Please note this happened a while ago, and I am condensing events to just the pertinent details.

Large Guy: “This is our spot! We were gonna set up here!”

Me: “Sorry, sir, but this is a public park. It’s first come, first serve.”

The large guy looks at our family group to size us up, and spots some army honors. He immediately turns back to me trying to employ some drunk logic.

Large Guy: “Pfft! An Army family. We’re a Navy family so we outrank you!”

Me: “That doesn’t make a lick of sense, but even if it did we do have a retired Navy officer in our group.”

Large Guy: “Oh, yeah? Another Navy man? Where is he?”

Me: “She, actually, and she’s been standing next to me this whole time.”

The large guy looks confused and as if on cue, our family German Shepherd barks loudly at him.

Large Guy: “I still out-rank a f****** dog!”

The retired K9 handler (and my uncle) steps over and the navy guys talk a little bit. It turns out the large guy is one rank higher than our uncle.

Retired K9 Handler: “Well, by your logic, you gotta leave.”

Large Guy: “I’m Navy and I outrank you!”

Retired K9 Handler: “The dog is always one rank higher than its handler, a**hole! You should know that! And since you and the dog share a rank, and the dog was here before you, you gotta vamoose!”

The large navy guy tried to find a workaround, but his own drunk logic was used against him. He marched off with his group, and if he had been a dog he would have had his tail between his legs. 

Retired naval officer Lexi got extra sausages that Memorial Day!

If you didn’t see that coming then have fun with the stories in this roundup! 18 Times Memorial Day Went About How You’d Expect!

CONTENT WARNING: Animal Cruelty

The uncle in this story is my step-uncle, my grandmother is his stepmother, and the house he evacuated to is his mother’s (my step-grandfather’s ex-wife). This uncle is also a deadbeat with severe alcohol, gambling, and mental health problems he refuses to get or accept help for.

As previously mentioned, my uncle evacuated to his mother’s house just recently because of Hurricane Ida. However, for reasons unknown to all of us, he didn’t bring his two dogs with him despite his mother not having any issues with them coming along. Because of this, they ended up being left alone in a hot trailer for several days that had been half destroyed by the storm without any food or water.

When my grandmother found out about this, she was livid. She and my step-grandfather essentially forced my cousin — one of my uncle’s adult children — to drive out there, pick up the dogs, and give them up to the first animal shelter he could find with working facilities. Apparently, the poor things were extremely dehydrated and hungry. They were also filthy and ridden with fleas and ticks, but we strongly suspect they already had these issues prior to the hurricane.

As soon as my grandparents got water and power back to their place, my grandmother drove out and adopted both of the pups. Apparently, my uncle has since been begging her to return them to him, but she refuses to do so after what he put them through. Both she and my step-grandfather have even gone so far as to threaten him with getting the police involved should he try to take them. These are all decisions that everyone in our immediate family — barring my uncle, of course — wholeheartedly supports.

I am the person who submitted the two stories about my elderly aunt and her whack-a-doodle senior center director demanding that everyone join the senior center. My elderly Jewish in-laws were greatly offended by these actions. It got even worse a year later when my aunt came up with this outrageous and highly offensive conversation about my husband’s parents.

Aunt: “[Husband]’s parents should join the senior center! We have so many fun surprises there! One day, our director loaded us all on the senior center bus, and she didn’t tell us where we were going. We drove for half an hour, and you know what? They took us to another senior center for lunch! It was so much fun! [Husband]’s parents are really missing out on these fun surprises!”

This statement is HIGHLY significant to this story because both sets of my husband’s grandparents are Holocaust survivors. His paternal grandparents survived the concentration camps. There is NO WAY my husband’s parents would EVER get on any form of transportation not knowing where they were going because of their parents’ stories about going to the concentration camps.

I told my aunt about this, and what she said shocked me!

Aunt: “[Husband]’s parents are irrational! The Holocaust never happened! [Pastor who conducts religious services at the senior center] said that never happened! He says that the Jews are lying and that no one died! [Husband]’s parents are just using it as an excuse not to join the senior center!”

Me: “[Pastor] says that the Holocaust never happened?! Then why does [Husband]’s grandfather have numbers tattooed on his arm?!”

Aunt: “He must have put them there himself! He probably went to jail when he got to the United States, and that is where he got the tattoo!”

Me: “Have you freaking lost it?! Go to the library and look for books on the Holocaust! Those will prove that it happened!”

Aunt: “I still don’t believe you!”

I immediately contacted the state division on aging and spoke to the same man that got the senior center director fired in the last story. He immediately called the new director of the senior center. He raised such a stink that not only was [Pastor] permanently banned from ALL senior centers in the state, but he put the senior center director on notice about properly screening people who volunteer at the center. He threatened to have her fired if he ever heard anything that outrageous about the senior center again!

My aunt found out about my phone call and refuses to speak to me to this day. Apparently, she really loved [Pastor]!

Related:
“Senior Center” Is Definitely Code For “Cult”
Is “Senior Center” Code For “Cult”?