So That's What They Mean By A Funny Uncle

It was an old-fashioned 4th of July for the Snags, far away from where we live. We go to our friends' place every year at this time, a break that means the world to our kids and us. This year was typical.

We went to a parade:



















Our kids hung out:



















And we had Scotch and fireworks. That made for a tense moment when shrapnel hit my middle son, but once my Lovely Bride calmed down, it was fine.

Best of all, we had my friend's 12-year-old niece out on a fishing boat, just her, my friend, and me. First she bet her uncle he wouldn't swallow a live minnow for $10. Bad bet on her part.

After that went awry, she tried to change the subject.

"I'm going to ask you questions and you have to answer them," she said.

"Okay," we said. The fish weren't biting anyway.

"Was Noah's Ark real?" she asked.

"Yes it was," came the answer, "It was really more of a floating slaughterhouse than an ark, however. That's why some animals disappeared. Like when Noah got a hankering for some unicorn sausage."

"Next question," she said. "Why does it seem like so many of the nail parlors where I live are owned by Chinese people?"

"That's because of the Louisiana Purchase," we said. "Jefferson insisted on that as a condition because he was worried that once the railroads were built there wouldn't be enough work to go around."

"Alright," she said. "How about flying fish? Are there really such things?"

"There are a few kinds," we replied. "For example, there are vampire bass. It's a common misconception these are bats, but that's because of a regional dialect that mispronounces the word. There are also buskies, a member of the pike family. They have long venomous fangs they uses to stab their prey."

She giggled. "You guys are weird."

We headed back to the cabin about midnight, just in time to open a new bottle of wine. Our wives shook their heads and apologized when she told them what we'd said and our own kids rolled their eyes and said we were idiots. Yes we are, but for these few days we're happy ones.