This recent trip to my apartment in Hawaii was a family affair as we attended the annual owners meeting. As they often do, my aunt and uncle attended but they brought my cousin Steven with them for the first time. Cousin Steven is gay and just recently out of the closet with everyone, which made for such wonderful “All in the Family” moments with my Archie Bunker dad that it was like a constant laugh track just kept playing in my head. Below I have chronicled my list of gay jokes I delivered with excellent timing and to various reacitons:

• On a hike, one of the people with us had a bag of cashews and almonds and noted that they aren’t roasted, they’re just plain and natural.
  I added that its cool since my cousin has plenty of experience with raw nuts in his mouth.

• On a different walk, we were going down stairs and he slid down a railing, which left a rust mark on the seat of his shorts, giving way to the remark that now he has a “rusty ass”.
  I said that if you mean rusty as in “out-of-practice”, then you have nothing to worry about.

• Leaving a destination, we thought he had forgotten a camera there, but his dad had picked it up. So someone commented that “he saved his ass”.
  Only hearing parts of the setup, I jumped in to ask – saving his ass? for what? true love? eh-doubtful.

• Returning from a hike in the jungle, he complained about how bad the mosquitoes were. No one else who went got bit a single time, so I said “maybe they were fruit flies”.

• One night after going to a gay bar and not coming home, my aunt was rummaging around thinking out loud and said at one point that “[my cousin] didn’t give me back my hand sanitizer”.
  I chimed in that “I think he needs it more than any of us right now”. (she wasn’t amused)
• When he finally did come home, him, my uncle and I took off in the car we rented to go meet the ladies who had taken the bus to the swap meet. While loading into the car, my uncle was looking for something and went to the back of the car to ask my cousin to “pop the trunk”.
  I pointed out that “I think he did that last night”.