After a recent dinner, my nephew Devon (astute observer of family dynamics that he's become) took one look at his dad easing behind the wheel of his sensible Saturn, another at his goofy uncle straddling a far-less-sensible softail and (wise guy that he has also become) remarked in my direction, "So, are you supposed to be the cool one?"

By "cool one" I assume Dev was employing polite Tsai family parlance for childless, self-indulgent flake who lives in a dinky, overpriced studio with two cats and whose nuggets of wisdom begin and end with "Jack-in-the-Box tacos rule."

Y'know, that kind of cool.

And, if you'll forgive the navel gazing here, is there any more tragic figure than the badly aging "cool" uncle?

Sure, the arrested development thing seems appropriate when you're launching the little ones overhead into the pool or laying smack in the heat of NCAA Football '08, but the illusion that you represent some sort of viable alternative to traditional home-and-hearth adulthood is difficult to sustain as the kids start to catch on to the way the world really works.

This is not to say that we "cool" uncles don't have our uses. Who better to spill Dad's embarrassing childhood stories than a first-hand witness with younger-sib issues to work through? Who better to encourage young adults to spread their wings and explore the world than an eccentric uncle with no obligation to pick up the bill?

It's a nice gig for us unctuous uncs, as well. When my elder niece Allie was a toddler, I felt free to practice my own brand of cultural transmission — slam dancing with her to Black Flag and Fugazi in the family living room — secure in the knowledge that her parents had the really important stuff covered.

Yet, as years pass and the parade of here-this-year "aunties" grows longer and Uncle Thing (as younger niece Jodie re-named me) gets fatter and balder, I'm sure there grows in my surrogate kids' minds the gnawing suspicion that they're awfully lucky to have the mom and dad they do.

Thankfully, the kids are as patient and accepting as their parents. That is, they don't cringe (outwardly at least) when I wax hysterical on the contradictions in the Harley-Davidson V-Rod or the meanings in the Minutemen's "Felt Like a Gringo." They don't even shake their heads when I show up at their pick-up basketball games, hack the snot out of their friends, then retire to the sidelines to hyperventilate for 45 minutes.

Fortunately, just as we childless aunts and uncles appreciate our nieces and nephews when they're young, the nice thing about cool uncles is that we're fun for a while but eventually go home.

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.