Aunt Erin on the case

I don't really want to have kids. I haven't ever felt a strong urge to have someone shriek, "Mom! Guess what?" at me while smearing unitentified goo on my shirt, and since my parents have three other chances for grandkids, there's not a lot of pressure.

I do, however, want neices and nephews and godchildren. This is not because I like kids, particularly, but rather because I'm evil. There's no better way to torture your siblings and close friends than by making their kids happy. I want to send my sister's kids fingerpaint and play-doh for Christmas, and laugh my ass off when she calls me complaining that her walls are a mess. M3's kids are getting kittens, and maybe a lizard if I get ambitious. My brother's kids are getting the entire Curious George series, along with a copy each of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, and I will instruct his children that their father is to read all of them at least once before they even consider sleeping, and if the reading isn't enthusiastic enough, they are to throw a tantrum. Man, I got so sick of those books when we were young and E2 would demand to read them all the time. I wanted Ramona! Sucks to Mike Mulligan!

I'm going to take their kids out, sugar them up, and send them home. I'm going to teach them swear words and sarcasm and ruin their dinners and let them stay up too late playing video games. I'm going to take them to amusement parks and toy stores. I'm going to teach them to read madly and love baseball and have good grammar, too, but the evil comes first.

In fact, I've started using their future children against my friends already, as in, "If you tell that stupid story one more time, I'm getting your kid a snare drum for his third birthday." It's fun, but not necessarily effective, because as Tex told me the other day, "Don't kid yourself. You're going to do that no matter what I do."

He's not wrong.