LIONS AND TIGERS AND PERVS...OH MY

So I get home last night, tooling around the house, doing this and that, ain't no big thang, knowhutI'msayin'??

The phone rings.

It's the Mrs.

"How about we go to Zoo Boo tonight?" she says, all excited.

"Tonight?" I ask.

"Yeah!" she says. "It's a beautiful night and it'll probably be the only night we can go."

(Zoo Boo is the annual tradition our Zoo holds where they put up some really lame games for kids to play like ring toss and ball drop. Each game costs at least 50 cents to play, and if you win the game, you get a Tootsie Roll or some shit. It's like paying to trick or treat. This would be Andrew's first time going to the event.)

"Sure, we can go," I said and then I singlehandedly dashed every single thought in my wife's head. "Oops! We can't go!"

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because it's Monday and that's our night that we have to supervise Pervy because he's all retarded and can't keep his hands away from his penis."

Dead silence on her end.

"Y'see honey...Pervy ruins EVERYTHING. We can never ever ever do anything on Mondays again because we have to watch Perrrrrrvy every single fucking Monday night. Ever."

"I'm going to call them and see if they're bringing him over," she said hopefully.

"Don't waste your cell phone minutes," I barked. "Of COURSE they're bringing him over here. We agreed to do it once and that's all they needed to hear. One time equals FOREVERRRRR in their book."

"I'm calling anyway," she said. "I'll call you right back."

Five minutes later she calls back.

"Okay...they're bringing Pervy over," she says while I snicker quietly. "But I told my brother to go ahead and bring him now because we want to go to Zoo Boo."

"And Pervy's going with us?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

Great.

Just fucking great.

Susie gets home at 6:15 as usual.

We wait.

And we wait.

And we wait.

Technically, when Susie called me, she was further away from our house then her brother was when she called him and he told her they were "on their way".

Zoo Boo runs from 6-9 p.m.

You have to take into consideration that my son's bedtime is 9 p.m. He's usually ready for bed at that point.

You also must take into consideration that since he's not really aware of how the time change works...8 p.m. is actually 9 p.m. to him.

At 6:55 p.m., Pervy shows up at our doorstep, followed by his dad and little brother Pervy Jr.

(Some of you have gotten my in-law situation mixed up...Pervy's dad is NOT the Coke-guzzling, $1,1000-owing, loser fuckwad brother-in-law. Pervy's Dad is alright with me. He's like three-quarters deaf and doesn't say much because he has trouble hearing people and refuses to wear a hearing aid because he's only 42 and he doesn't think he's old enough to be saddled with a hearing aid. The loser brother-in-law is actually Pervy's other Uncle besides me)

Pervy's Dad naturally wants his Diet Dr. Pepper. He waltzes in the kitchen, opens the fridge, checks out whatever we have to eat in there, grabs a can of Diet Dr. Pepper and Pervy Jr. and takes off towards church.

"C'mon, let's go," I said rather hurriedly. I was aggravated at the fact that it takes my half-deaf brother-in-law 45 minutes to drive 15 miles. Especially when we had plans and were waiting on him. But this guy is by far the slowest person I've ever met. One Thanksgiving we all went ahead and ate because he and his family were close to two hours late for dinner. They showed up at the tail end of dinner, made NO apologies, sat down and ate the lukewarm food.

So we all pile in the van and set off for the Zoo.

Oops. Susie forgot Andrew's stroller. We need to turn around and get it.

I let out an exasperated sigh to signal that I'm not happy about this one bit. We've already had to wait 45 minutes for Pervy and now I've got to turn around and go back to the house for Andrew's stroller?

I turn the van around and she can tell I'm pissed.

"Well ... we don't HAVE to go back and get his stroller," she says. "I just thought it'd be nice to have."

"Make up your mind," I said through clenched teeth. "Do you want the stroller or not?"

"We don't have to have it," she said.

I turned the van around again.

"Let's stop at McDonalds and get Andrew something to eat," she said.

Fine. It's only 7:15. Andrew's good for another 45 minutes. We'll stop at Mickie Dee's.

Susie makes the mistake of asking Pervy if he wants something to eat.

Pervy orders a Big Mac Value Meal, Super Sized.

Susie asks Pervy if he's already had dinner. He shamefully says yes. Susie suggests a hot apple pie instead. Because the kid's a fucking glutton and eventually someone has to step in and say "Do you want a heart attack by the time you're 16?"

If it were up to me, I'd had ordered him McCarrots. Except McDonalds isn't about health food.

FINALLY....at 7:40, we get to the Zoo.

We get in there and everything's set up differently from how it used to be. Granted, we only went there once and that was years ago when we took the Pervy Bunch there. Then, everything was under a big tent. This time, games were scattered all over the place in the dark.

Andrew saw a Ball Crawl. Not your normal Ball Crawl, this was about 200 beach balls all blown up and in a big room-sized net. He wanted to get in there so badly, he could taste it.

We pay our 50 cents to let him in.

And he stands there at the entrance to the ball crawl. Temporarily paralyzed with fear. He comes running back out and into my arms.

"Dude," I say. "I just paid 50 cents for you to go in there and get beaned in the head with dozens of beach balls thrown by children several years older than you. Now get in there and take it like a man, you little sissy."

We put him back in the entrance, and once again he runs back to me and grabs my leg.

"He wants you to go in there with him," Susie says.

Great.

So I go in with him. About 8 kids in there....and me.

Andrew picks up one ball and throws it about a foot. He's had his fun...now it's time to leave.

So we leave.

We walk around and quickly notice that none of the games are really geared toward two year-olds here. All the games are mostly designed for kids five and older. Games like "Stick The Rusty Fish Hook In Your Hand And Get Lockjaw" and "Throw Beanbags Really Hard At Anyone Within Range".

So our Zoo Boo experience mostly revolves around us walking around the games in circles, hoping that we suddenly see a game called "Stand Still And Win" or some shit that Andrew could do.

Oh. And of course, we had to be regaled with Pervy's stories. Of which, he had plenty. He recounted each Halloween that he's experienced in his 15 years grunting around on this earth. I completely tuned him out and left Susie to walk around saying "Uh huh", "Oh yeah?" and "Wow" over and over again while she ignored him too.

By 8:15, Andrew's exhausted. We took him on a hayride around the Zoo and he began falling asleep on that.

"This was not a good idea," I told Susie. "We should have waited and came out on a night when we didn't have to wait on your brother and Pervy."

She agreed, which shocked me.

So we get off the hayride, while Pervy spouted off every single boring fact about hay that you could possibly imagine, and headed to the parking lot.

We're not even out of the parking lot and Andrew's asleep in his car seat.

So Pervy jumps on the opportunity he has been given. A captive audience to listen to his boring stories.

He tells us a story about some people they go to church with that recently went on an Alaskan cruise and brought back a candle for his family. This takes him at least five minutes to tell because he talks very slowly and methodically. He pauses for dramatic effect in every single wrong place he can find, so that halfway through his stories, you lose interest, give up the will to follow his story and just daydream until he stops talking.

We get home and Pervy IMMEDIATELY heads for my office to get on my computer.

I'm tired of fighting it. Maybe I'm being selfish here, but in a way, a computer is a personal thing. You don't want just anyone to saunter in, plop down in front of your computer and start going through your favorites/bookmarks. I mean...would YOU feel comfortable with family members sitting down at your computer and "exploring"?

Plus...add in the fact that the kid will scurry towards the nearest porn site as soon as you leave the room and it makes you even more uneasy.

Pervy's Dad (who really needs his own nickname here...I'll work on that...maybe "Deafy" or something)shows up at 9:15 to take Pervy home. He mumbles some shit about how thankful they are that we watch Pervy every week and I say "No problem" because I'm deep down a nice guy and not overly demonstrative of my poor attitude towards my nephew.

They leave.

I tell Susie the truth.

"I hate to say this," I said. "But I really don't like Pervy."

"He's at a very unlikeable stage in life right now," she said.

"He reminds me so much of your other brother...the Coke-slurping loser fucknugget," I told her.

"How so?" she asked.

"He has an opinion on everything, and his opinion is always the right one, no matter what he's talking about. He's incredibly boring. His stories have no point at all and are usually better left unmentioned," I rattled off.

"Anything else?" she asked.

"Well...the whole porn thing sickens me and has for years," I added.

Susie then put it best.

"Oh well. He's our nephew and always will be."

Now...I don't wish death on anyone.

But I'm hoping the kid eventually kills someone.

THEN...maybe I can justify my desire to be disassociated with the kid.