How Barbie Wrecked My Relationship With My Niece

Over the holidays, my fiancée and I like to do a "round robin" of the homes of my brothers and sisters. Mostly, we try and hit the ones who have kids so we can keep in close touch with them and make sure they don't forget me (although, since I have six sisters, I often get asked, "which one are you again?"). Anyway, one night we stayed with my brother, sister-in-law, and their three kids.

One of their kids is a very vocal and hilarious little girl (the two boys are the same—even though one of them is still too little to talk, he vocalizes a lot). On Christmas morning, she asked me if I would help her put together the Barbie playhouse she received from Santa. "Sure," I said--and with such alacrity. I remembered when one of my older sister's had gotten the Barbie playhouse when we were little, and how much it rocked.

I won't get into it but suffice to say that the farking stickers alone nearly made me lose the will to live. And all those little pieces! I couldn't believe I got myself into such a fix, and when my sister-in-law came in to check on us, she laughed and said something along the lines of, "sucker."

Finally, I thought I finished. Or, to be more exact, I thought I had done enough that even if not every single sticker was on every single little piece, my niece would never know.

WRONG.

A few days after I returned to DC, I received the following email from my brother: "…G [my neice] wants you to know that you almost threw away some of her Barbie stuff because it was still in the box. Luckily she and J [my sister-in-law] went through it before it went out in the trash. She told me all about it when I got home [from work] Monday. Apparently, it was a major crisis avoided. I said, 'pfffft, that's Aunt J for you...'  She gave you an eye roll and a head shake. Then we stood and contemplated your incompetence for a few seconds and she said, 'Did she try to throw out your toys when you were a little boy and she was your sister?'"

Aunt FAIL. But what I am still wondering is, what did my brother reply?