My Uncle Adam is actually cool

My Uncle Adam is actually pretty cool, which is surprising because he’s an adult and most adults are boring.

Most adults only talk about work, bills, the weather, or stuff that nobody cares about. Sometimes they ask you how school was, but they don’t actually want to know. They just want you to say “good” so they can go back to looking at their phone.

Uncle Adam is my mom’s brother, so he comes over a lot. Mom always tells me to go talk to him instead of hiding in my room playing Fortnite, and normally I would rather stay in my room because talking to adults is annoying. Talking to Uncle Adam isn’t that bad though because he talks like a normal person and says funny stuff.

He asks me about school, but he doesn’t ask boring questions like “What did you learn today?” Nobody remembers what they learned at school by the time they get home anyway.

Instead he asks things like, “What’s the dumbest rule at your school?” or “Who is the most annoying kid in your class?”

Those are actually good questions.

Then I start telling him about how Mr. Murphy wouldn’t let me sharpen my pencil during a lesson even though my pencil was broken, or how Brandon keeps making stupid noises when everyone is trying to work. The more I explain it, the more I remember how annoying everything was, and then I start getting mad all over again.

Most adults would tell me to calm down or say something stupid like, “Your teacher is just trying to help you.”

Uncle Adam usually says, “Yeah, that rule makes no sense,” or “That kid sounds like an idiot.”

THANK YOU.

Finally, an adult who understands.

One time I told him that homework ruins your entire life because you already spent all day doing work at school and then they make you do more work when you get home. He said homework probably exists because teachers don’t have enough time to teach everything during school.

That still sounds like the teacher’s problem to me.

Then he said some homework is probably pointless anyway, especially when they give you the same kind of math problem twenty times after you already proved you know how to do it. I told Mom that Uncle Adam agreed homework was stupid, but she said that wasn’t what he meant.

It sounded like what he meant.

Uncle Adam also lets me talk for a really long time without interrupting. Sometimes I forget what my original point was and start talking about something else, but he still listens. Most adults tell me I’m getting off topic, but maybe the new topic is better than the old one anyway.

Sometimes he laughs at things I say, but I don’t think he’s making fun of me. At least he’s actually listening. A lot of adults just stare at their phones and say “uh-huh” every few seconds even when you can tell they have no idea what you’re talking about.

I tested this on my dad once by telling him that Jay got eaten by a shark at school. Dad said, “That’s nice, buddy,” without looking away from his phone.

Jay is fine, by the way. We don’t even have sharks at school.

Uncle Adam also watches hockey and actually knows what’s happening. Some adults say dumb things like, “Why don’t they just score more goals?” Yeah, no kidding. I’m pretty sure the Flyers already thought of that.

He knows who Travis Konecny is, and he doesn’t call every player “that guy.” He also gets mad when the Flyers play badly, which means he understands hockey better than Mom because she just says, “It’s only a game.”

It is NOT only a game when they lose to the Penguins.

He also doesn’t treat me like a baby. Mom gets mad when he swears around me, but I already know all the swear words because kids say them at school. Some kids even know worse words than Uncle Adam does, especially Zach because he’s in sixth grade.

Mom says Uncle Adam is a bad influence sometimes. I don’t think that’s true because he never tells me to do anything bad. He just explains why rules are stupid and tells me funny stories about things he did when he was younger.

Okay, some of the stories are about him doing bad things, but he usually says not to do them afterward, so that makes it educational.

Mom probably thinks we’re just hanging out, but Uncle Adam is the only adult who admits that adults can be wrong and some rules really don’t make sense. Other adults act like every rule is automatically good just because another adult made it.

That can’t be true because adults made homework, taxes, and bedtime.

More adults should be like Uncle Adam. They should listen when kids talk, know something about hockey, and admit when stuff is stupid.

Maybe the world wouldn’t be so annoying if adults stopped pretending they were right all the time.

Timmy Baker

Nine-year-old Timmy Baker is the writer behind AJnet Magazine’s Kewl Kidz Corner™. His interests include Fortnite, Minecraft, hockey, and Family Guy. His dislikes include his little brother Aiden, bedtime, and homework. He also has the coolest uncle in the world and probably shouldn’t let his mom know he’s writing here.

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