Happy Birthday at Dirt Haven!

Years ago, I threw a party for my youngest nephew, at the time four years old. His birthday is in August, so when I was gainfully employed, I completely filled our small poolette with inflated Smiley face beach balls and a blow-up palm tree. I added a five-foot-tall inflated monkey, because he loves monkeys. He never forgot it and now, seven years later, he wants a semi-re-creation of that event, with varying themes, every year.

His mom, my sister Lynn, doesn’t get it and accuses me of being a horrible influence and OCD that she is, I am also disparaged as a person who sends home innumerable dirigibles that I imagine her stabbing and secreting out in garbage containers during her into-the-wee hours cleaning binges. “You two must be cut from the same mold!” she accuses over the phone (referring to me and my nephew), when her only responsibility for the party is to send the hundreds of inflatables our way so that Uncle Jack can blow them up with his industrial strength air compressor. (I admit that some of those bizarre collectibles of his have occasional use.)

All I ask is a little assistance in terms of gift suggestions and decorations but when I call, she yells, “WHAT!? What do you want now?!” Gotta love that little five-foot demon from hell.

Jack is taking his first week off in more than seven months, because otherwise he will lose his 140 hours of accumulated vacation. I’m still trying to get in some billable poor person writer hours, but other than that, it’s like taking a vacation with the Energizer Bunny. He’s up at 6 a.m. tearing boards off of the house, declaring that squirrels are in the attic, and vowing to shoot the little creatures that I feed daily. “You’re attracting them to the house!” he yells as I, a person who seldom retires before 1 a. m., attempt to funnel coffee into my shocked body.

I watch from the back window as he zooms back and forth, back and forth, on a Gator vehicle, then a tractor, then my Jeep with various tools and appliances. I am able to locate him occasionally by the sounds of banging on the sides of the house. The day before, he pulled over a dump truck driver and negotiated a dump of a dirt load in our front lawn—right before the alleged birthday party. When I complain he admonishes, “Never turn down free dirt!” He tacks up a sign in our front lawn to alert the truck drivers: “Dirt!” it reads.

“Let’s just skip that step and put up a sign that reads ‘White Trash’,” I suggest.

“There’s a lot of difference between dirt and white trash,” he tells me.

I must admit that this is very true.

Well, Jack chased the trucks down today and they were out of dirt. We didn’t get any. I attempted to console him. Just write the word “Haven” under “Dirt” on the sign and we can join the pompous elite who name their abodes.