For a long time, I believed that my nephews Carter and Oliver, now aged 9 and 7, adored me. But that seems to have morphed into a mocking contempt now that they’ve figured out that I’m subordinate to them and not the other way around. I believe this inevitable downfall was set in motion when I was babysitting them one afternoon at our apartment. Needing to run down to the corner store beneath us, I asked them if there was anything I could pick-up for them. I did this without thinking, just as I’d ask Rachelle the same question.
Carter, the eldest boy, had a look of wonder wash over his face and without blinking said that he would like a Coke, a Scratch N’ Win ticket, a chocolate bar and some Kraft Dinner. I went and bought all these things, returning them to the boys like they were royalty. I was, I guess, trying to buy silence. Over the course of the afternoon I made two more trips for them, returning with those rubber gloves you wear to do the dishes, potato chips, hot dog buns and a flashlight.
Pretty much ever since they’ve been calling me “Fart-A-Tronic,” “Four-Eyed Skull Face” and even more disturbingly “Dead Eyes.” The respect is gone, and as a result I now hate them.
Right now Oliver has a loose tooth that he’s constantly wiggling. It’s fucking gross, it freaks me out, and there’s nothing I can do to get him to stop. And so he tortures me with it. Carter will shout at him, “Do it Oliver, wiggle it at Dead Eyes!” and then he’ll move his tooth about and delight in watching me flinch and gag. These boys have become a couple of little power-mad sadists.
However, there is a weak spot, and that weak spot is the Tooth Fairy. Oliver still believes in him and is looking forward to the money he’ll get when this stupid tooth falls out of his stupid head, but Carter is too old to believe in the Tooth Fairy, and has promised to prove that he doesn’t exist by training the Web Cam on the Oliver’s bed the night he puts his tooth under his pillow, thus revealing that his parents are actually the Tooth Fairy.
It’s what older brothers do, I guess.
At any rate, to teach them a lesson I’ve decided to use the key their parents gave us in case of an emergency to sneak into the house on the night that Oliver is expecting the Tooth Fairy to show up. I will wear a nylon stocking over my head, a cape and some creepy, old wings from a discarded Halloween costume and I will carry a hammer as a magic wand. I will walk up to the computer and break-off the web-cam, leaving some change beneath Oliver’s pillow and a photograph of him sleeping in bed.
Game. Set. And match. Murray.