My Cousin's Kid

Quiet Rage has been in Honolulu for a bit.  Waikiki is Japan's Mexico.  They come over in droves for the favorable exchange rates, shopping, and getting married.  Waikiki is also home to tacky tourist traps including luaus featuring Polynesian dancers with wigs and plastic grass skirts.  From our condo we could see the luau nightly with a fresh batch of tourists (FOBS) getting drunk on mai tais and getting up on stage dancing.  Yup.  Yet another drunken, painfully sunburned goofball from Wisconsin thinks he can dance.  Waikiki is not my favorite spot in Hawaii, but it was centrally located for the purpose of this trip and afforded the opportunity to spend time with my daughter and her teammates.  Next trip to Honolulu will NOT be at the Hilton Hawaiian Village no matter how good of a deal they toss at me.  The two days at the Moana Surf Rider, despite the small room, had so much more authenticity and meaning than the two bedroom condo with a view and a kitchen.

Anyway, enough of that.  It's nice to be back in Sonoma County.  The 5 hour flight from Honolulu to Oakland was uneventful, which is just what you want for an airline flight.  About 30 minutes prior to landing I was starting to think about what is waiting for me at work as being gone is never really vacation -- it's mere postponement.  I did take care of some business while gone, but the stacks of mail will cover my desk when I go in tomorrow morning. I'm punished for being away.  Whatever.  The world will not stop spinning on its axis because I did not complete some form or resolve a workers' compensation issue, or a personnel complaint, or whatever.

I did get a new one while gone.  An employee who was working at Pier 39 in San Francisco was provided parking.  We all know parking in SF is at a premium.  The employee had a motorcycle, so he sold his company provided parking pass, which was for a car.   When caught he was terminated.  In retaliation, the employee slashed the tires of the boss who fired him.  The idiot denied it - even when security cameras caught him red-handed doing it.  My job is to diffuse the situation.  First order of business is to file a police report and replace the tires for the boss.  Where was I going with this?????  Oh, thinking that I've heard everything at this point in my career.  I thought nothing could top the incident where an employee photocopied his dick and taped it to the foreman's hard hat.

Anyway, my point was that I was starting to think about work about 30 minutes prior to landing in Oakland and wondering what's waiting for me.  The plane landed.  I turned on my cell phone with the sole purpose of texting my kids to let them know all was well.  As I looked down at my phone to send the text to my kids, I saw a stream of text messages from my friends.  Always good to hear from my friends.  Then I saw a text message with no name, but just the number of the sender.  Hmmmmm.  Who is this????  A junk text message?  We are all getting more and more of those these days.   Then I saw the heading of the text.  It was addressed to me using a childhood nickname that only close friends and family use.

The text was from my cousin's kid.  Mind you, this cousin and I were NOT close growing up but have remained on the Christmas card exchange list (aka Christmas brag letter) and friend on Facebook (where all disingenuous lurk).  I think I have met my cousin's kid once.  I have only seen my cousin about three times in the last 30 years.

What would my cousin's kid possibly want?  MONEY, of course.  I have ignored his letters saying he's on some mission gospel bullshit in Northern Africa and is looking to spread God's word (and looking for sponsors).  I've seen the pictures on Facebook of him licking some camel's face and whatnot.  His mother (my cousin) and father have a huge McMansion of a house and are always posting pictures of themselves on yet another exotic, luxurious trip.  Now they are begging money from ME?????????  I had no idea they were destitute.  Their lavish lifestyle they advertise on social media suggests quite the opposite.

Sorry, but I'm not funding my cousin's kid's vacation to Northern Africa.  Using the guise of God's name and cloaking it as a missionary purpose does not persuade me.  In fact, it pisses me off.  I'm pissed that his "church" is telling him to shake down distant relatives he doesn't even know for money.  His mother must condone it, as how else would a kid I don't even know get my cell phone number?  She's just as much to blame.  I'm sorry we share the same DNA.

Ending on a humorous note, here's Rap Reiplinger's Japanese Roll Call for Hawaii.