You’ve met my father and mother and sister by now, but I don’t believe I’ve properly introduced the rest of my faux family – the assemblage of aunts and uncles who weren’t aunts and uncles at all, rather cousins and friends that AO and Mary had managed to collect along the way. It didn’t cross my mind that this was an odd arrangement until I was well into high school. Frankly, I thought everyone had a bunch of fake aunts and uncles because, well, why wouldn’t they? Only as I acquired a few close friends of my own and was able to insinuate myself into their families did I discover most people have actual aunts and uncles and therefore no need to use rent-a-relative services.
© 2024 Eric Stromquist
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