Five Minutes of Fun, and a Lifetime of Infamy…

Does anyone else have a family member who is just simply a doofus?

In my family, that would be my brother, Billy. His latest entry for the Darwin Awards happened yesterday afternoon. Uncle Billy had given my little boy a remote-controlled helicopter for his 6th birthday last month, and yesterday he comes to our house for a family meal. It isn’t long before his nephew emerges with the helicopter, hoping Uncle Billy will show him how to fire it up for the first time. After the helicopter nearly knocks a bottle of wine off the kitchen counter on its way to an exciting collision with the ceiling fan, I send them to the backyard.

Pretty soon the kid comes running through the house, yelling in panic that the helicopter “won’t come down!” Apparently it’s taken flight over the roof, and the poor kid hopes to keep it in sight by running through the house and out the front door. Hubby jumps to his feet and follows him out to see what’s happening, and finds Uncle Billy, now in the front yard, having walked around the side of the house. Good old Uncle Billy has the remote controller, and is staring up at the sky, muttering that he can get it to go left and right, but not down. Hubby can’t even see the helicopter, but Billy points up to the sky at a tiny speck. Hubby shades his eyes and stares at the speck, and concludes that it doesn’t look like a helicopter, so he hustles inside for his binoculars, where he notifies me that “Houston, we have a problem.”

We both head outside, and Hubby scans the sky. The binoculars confirm- there is no helicopter anywhere in sight; what Uncle Billy believes was the helicopter is in fact a monarch butterfly he’s been delusionally controlling with the remote for the past five minutes. When all the adults double over laughing at this revelation, the poor child is just astounded. “It’s NOT funny! It’s NOT FUNNY!”

To his credit, Uncle Billy did promise to replace the helicopter, which is missing in action, and presumed dead.

* * *

Remote-controlled monarch butterfly. DeRAnged, indeed.

In other news, my Well-Wisher Badge arrived in the mail today, courtesy of the lovely Guylty! She couldn’t have picked a better badge for me. DeRAnged… In fact, it runs in the family! =)