My dad banged on my bedroom door yelling, "Wake up! It's Christmas!" Happy friggin' joy. I stumbled into the bathroom, just as the front door slammed and someone yelled "Where's my presents???" Oh boy. The step- relatives had arrived. Step-relatives are about fifty times worse than actual relatives, as they aren't really family, yet you have to put up with their skankasses anyway. Mine are the worst. I'd be willing to bet money.

My step-nephew (we'll call him Dustin) is the worst kid I've ever had the displeasure of encountering. When he was six years old, he held a plasic knife in my face and told me he planned on killing me. He's the kind of kid who'd tie tin cans to dogs' tails and try to set kittens on fire. Thankfully, they've found out that it's not due to his parents' lack of parenting skills, but because he has attention deficit disorder. What a relief. His mother carries around a big bag full of pills which turn him into a zombie. He sits stock-still on the sofa with his eyelids at half mast, and frankly, he has much more of a winning personality when he's doped up.

So, Dustin has burst in the front door, slamming it behind him, of course, and yelled out "Where's my presents?" at about 40 million decibels. We of course had to wait until everyone got there to open gifts, and as luck would have it, he and his mother were the first to arrive. They were about a half hour early, but insisted on pacing around impatiently. His mother (my step-sister) was just as bad as he was. She bitched and moaned about her sister being "late" and tried calling her cell phone and pager about eighty-six times. She finally showed up and Dustin had the wrapping paper off his first gift before she was fully in the door. Dustin got a new Gameboy, a giant box of baseball cards, a set of walkie-talkies, a few videos, and more toys than I ever had at one time when I was a kid. Yet he still cried when his brand new roller blades were a size too small. He didn't know how to work the Gameboy, and I actually had to show him how to turn it on. He then bent over it with a look much like a baby attempting to "make poo." Every time someone said something to him, he'd glance up, annoyedly as if he were trying to perform a triple bypass. When he was asked to turn it off for the blessing, he just sighed and held it up against his chest to mask the incessant beeping.

Dinner was a nightmare, complete with giblet gravy. There were about three items that did not contain meat, so I was stuck eating yams and rolls. There was a giant pot of beans, but alas, there was more ham in the pot than beans...but this is another rant altogether.

After dinner, I was approached by Dustin, who was holding a baseball card my dad and step-mother had gotten for him. It was one of those cheapy "re-issue" (read: FAKE) Babe Ruth cards that was printed like two years ago. I used to collect baseball cards when I was a kid, and I have boxes and boxes of them in storage. Every time I see Dustin, he asks me if he can have them, and obviously, the answer is "NO, you little bastard. Get the hell out of my room!"...okay, usually i just say, "no." So here's Dustin in my face with this stupid fake baseball card, and he says "I bet you don't have a Babe Ruth card! Nyeah, nyeah!" Okay, A) No, I don't. B) It's never really been a goal of mine to acquire such a card, and C) My father bought it for you! What kind of bastardy kid is going to brag to someone about something that person's own father bought for him?

An hour or so later, we were all standing outside, and it was mentioned that another of my cousins, who is ten, was going to be a model. Dustin responded with an annoyed expression and "So what? It's not like I care. I'm going to be a baseball player." Right. Me too. We all are. My guess is that he's going to be some sort of criminal. The kind who wears a hockey mask with his name and social security number on it while robbing a convenience store.