Seventh Inning Stretch

At some point late this afternoon, much to my surprise, I acquired a sixteen-year-old niece. A smirking, smart-mouthed niece who goes by the name Rachel. She appeared at my office and demanded I both provide her with food and take custody of her gym bag -- whose contents I was under no circumstances allowed to disturb.

When it became clear I would accomplish nothing until I acquiesced to her demands, I (perhaps foolishly) sent her into the wilds of San Francisco with my wallet and instructions to find us dinner while I rushed to finish six hours of work in the span of the twenty minutes I expected to have before Rachel returned with our dinner. My own productivity surprised me until I realized she had been gone for a more than an hour, and I spent a large portion of the 6:00 meeting worrying about the damage my newly-acquired niece was doing to the contents of my wallet.

Shortly after the meeting and mere moments before I could send an intern in search of Rachel's sickly green Honda, she returned with enough food to feed a small army -- or a large newsroom. I suspect I looked somewhat pained as she stepped back from the boxes and handed me my wallet, because she said, "Shut up. You need friends, and buying pizza gets you friends. I mean, pancakes got you a niece, didn't they?"

Regardless of who financed Rachel's endeavor, she was the person who brought the pizza into the office, and, as such, it did more to boost her popularity than my own. It grew increasingly difficult to maintain a straight face as she regaled my colleagues with tales of "Uncle Keith," and although I am made slightly and inexplicably uncomfortable by the prospect of being her blood relative, I am nonetheless looking forward to maintaining the fiction. She's a bright kid, and I believe uncles without children of their own are obligated to brag about their nieces.

I will, however, be speaking to my boss regarding his multiple attempts to give Rachel my job. But first I have a gym bag to look through.