A rookie mistake is getting out of things by claiming a grandparent died. You can do that a maximum of four times per person, and that’s assuming maximum social atomization, where nobody you know is likely to talk to each other and compare notes and realize that five of your grandmothers have died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the last three months. The winning play? Dead Uncles. You can have any number of dead uncles, because who knows how many siblings your parents have? You don’t even need to keep the stories straight because if you slip up you can claim it was two separate uncle deaths. You can repeat names, even, one on each side of your family. Uncles often die in memorable ways so you can get flamboyant with the specifics. Motorcycle accidents, firework explosions, prostate cancer, rottweiler training mishap. It won’t be that weird that you aren’t particularly torn up about it. Maybe you didn’t like your Uncle
Two kinds of responses in the notes on this one-
- Smart alecs using their pesky “lived experiences” of having “more than four grandparents via marriage, divorce, infidelity and polyamory” to bludgeon my poor, defenseless joke into paste
- Fellow scions of big sprawling Catholic families or something similar proudly sharing their own stories of exploiting the perpetually-refreshing Dead Uncle Cornucopia