Tulsa, Oklahoma–What was meant to be a nice, family dinner at the Kowalski household last Wednesday quickly erupted into a near fist-fight after Uncle Doug randomly remembered that the United States was currently in a state of governmental shutdown. As Doug’s niece, Claire, recounts, “I don’t know what happened…one second we’re talking about my gymnastics practice and suddenly Uncle Doug starts yelling about sequesters and healthcare and communism. All I wanted was to tell him about my balance beam routine.” Accounts state that Doug Kowalski had asked for some of Jane Kowalski’s famous roasted yam before staring into the distance for an extended period of time and sounding off about the “ass hats sitting in Congress.”
It is reported that the situation that occurred at the Kowalski home is by no means an isolated incident. All across the nation, uncles are inexplicably embarking on rants about Tea Party politicians and Joe Biden’s “stupid-ass grin.” According to a recent study conducted by Dr. Jonathan Schwartz, the head of the Sociology department at Princeton University, it is becoming clear that nearly all uncles in the United States have developed a habit of ruining every family gathering to which they are invited by combining gratuitous amounts of alcohol and regular viewership of highly-partisan news media.
While researchers are not quite sure what triggers these criticisms of US politics, they are almost positive that the rants are brought about by a combination of visual and auditory cues; what those cues are, however, remains a mystery. One researcher whose brother recently became a father was quoted as saying, “It’s almost like there isn’t a reason. But that can’t be the case. That would be stupid. Stupid like that fuck-stick sitting in the 6th district seat. OH REALLY? NASCAR NEEDS FEDERAL FUNDING’? TELL ME MORE, JACKASS.”
Schwartz acknowledges that there is no effective method of preventing random outbursts from the nation’s uncles. In fact, an updated version of his studies show that even though Congress has reopened, the nation’s uncle will invariably find another highly uncomfortable conversation topic to rant about including, but not limited to, that time he lost his virginity in the back of the old family station wagon.
