 See, I think I've been officially adopted by my wife's friend's 9-year-old daughter. I had little say in this matter. It looks like it's been officialised by my wife, her friend, her friend's husband, the daughter. Pretty much everyone except for me. And it's been a story several years in the making and I figured, you know what? I will share this with you because this is the quality content you guys come to see. So it started like this. Several years ago, my wife was invited by her friend to her daughter's birthday party. And to give you an idea of the context around this, children's birthday parties nowadays are like this grandiose event. Like, they are insane in this scale. So I rock up at this birthday party expecting maybe a cake, some stale chips, you know, a flat coke. Like, this is the best case scenario. But instead, I rock up to this friggin' jumping castle facility. I'm talking like, there was jumping castles bigger than houses in this giant warehouse with this great big table filled with cakes, drinks, every sugar laden thing you could possibly imagine. And I'm just an orgot. Holy moly. By God, I had the worst childhood in the world when you compare it to this. Basically, me and my brothers had sticks and we just tried to not take each other's eyes out. But I'm standing there with my wife who, for context, is Chinese. My friends are Chinese. Everyone there's Chinese. Pretty much except for me. I'm like the token white guy there. And they're all like blubbering away a Mandarin. I'm just standing there going, hmm, hmm, hmm. A few more hours of this and we should be all sweet to head out and grab some food at the restaurant. Now, my wife being the very concerning citizen she is, she turns to her friend and says, oh, is there anything Richard could do? And I'm like, oh, uh, it's okay. I'm fine standing here in the corner and her friend's like, oh, yes, actually, I've got the best idea. She reached into her bag and she's trying to act like this is all impromptu. She had this planned out. She opened up a bag and pulled out this jumping castle ticket, handed it to me and said, just give it to that guy over there and take all these kids and just like, corral them and take them over there and, you know, burn off some of that sugar. So we and the parents here can just chat and like, oh, you guys worked me good. You figured out the system because you know, I'd be into these jumping castles. Anyway, so I walk over there with this like Congo line of kids behind me. I hand over this ticket to like this giant beef of a man. Like the security at this place is insane. They've got this guy there who's like, I don't know. He must be at least 150 kilograms or something. I'm not going to convert that to American for you guys. But anyway, he's massive and I don't know why they need that. Like what type of kids are they expecting here? Anyway, I handed over this ticket. I walk in and I'm like, okay, which one of you is the daughter and like one sticks a hand up like this is at school or something like, okay, what do you want to do? And she's like, I want to jump. And I was like, okay, well, there you go. Jump. And I picked her up a little bit to help her jump. And she was like, oh my God, that was amazing. Do it again. And I was like, Jesus Christ, girl. And I was like, okay, I picked her up and I like, I kind of instinctively through her a little bit too hard. And she goes flying through the air like there's beanstalk, but they comes running back to me. And it's like one of those moments where your dog has picked up the stick for the first time and it's come back to you like, I have it master. And she comes running at me and literally propels herself through the air into my open arms. I'm like, whoa, okay, round two. And I throw her. And the next thing I know, all the kids want to be shot putted. So I'm just like, one after the other, boom, boom, boom, kid after kid. These guys are just loving it. Hey, like they're bouncing off the walls and they're just coming back for seconds, thirds. And by the end of this day, my arms are freaking killing me. And I'm so glad when my wife says, oh, Richard, it's time to go. And I'm like, I'm sorry, little kiddies. And they're all like crying because like I can't hang around now having so much fun. I was like, it's all right. You'll remember me by and I leave. And I think that's the end of it. You know, I've done my public service. I have helped the community in some way. Little did I know that the memory would be too strong. See, for a year later, I received a virtual birthday card inviting me officially to this girl's birthday party. Obviously, when I received this, I was a little bit confused, perplexed, I guess. And I turned to my wife and I said, what's going on here? And she turns to her friend obviously and says, what's going on here? And her friend says, well, sorry about this, but I kind of asked my daughter because she's a little bit older now. Who do you want to invite to your birthday party? Write it down on this list. So her daughter wrote down all her friends, you know, like Scott, Sammy. And then at the end of the list, she's written down white uncle and her mother's gone. What's a white uncle? Who's the white uncle? Who have you been speaking to? And she goes, oh, you remember when we were at the jumping castle and there was that like that white uncle? I want him to come. And her mom's like, oh, okay, well, I'll organize that for you. Apparently it was organized. So here I am having to go off the birthday party number two. Thank God this was not at the jumping castle. It was just in this house with all these chips and drinks and stuff. But again, I was put on child support. So here I am playing hide and seek with this army of slightly taller minions. They're really good at playing hide and seek. Like they're half my height so they can just fit in the places where one, they shouldn't. And two, they just can. And I'm not that great. I'm just like this tall, lanky guys hiding behind the door and they're like, fancy. We go through that whole endeavor. I try to make it as fun as possible. And at the end of the day, I'm like, oh, I'm sweating like literally guys. I'm sweating just thinking about this whole experience. Or maybe it's just the heat. The day's over. I move on, but I am standing there a little bit in the back of my mind in fear that there will be a third card another year later. And that is coming up guys. It's coming up soon. And I know I'm going to get that card for a few weeks ago. I received a message on Facebook. You know when you get one of those friend requests and you're like, who's that? I don't remember them. Maybe there's someone from my old school days or something and you click on it and there's like little girl's face appears and I noticed that face straight away. I'm like, oh God, oh God, what do I do? Because you know, this looks really bad. Like you got a like a nine or eight year old girl sending a Facebook request to like this 36 year old balding white guy. Like, you know, the image of the type of guy she shouldn't be sending Facebook requests to. So I quickly speak to the mom. You know, you're not sending me a message on Facebook. I totally did not organize that. And she's like, oh, it's all good. We're watching her Facebook. We know who she's speaking with. She just wanted to add you as a friend because you're like her only white friend. And I was like, oh, OK, kind of sounded depressing in that way. But yeah, OK, fine. So she added me and I figured I'll get a couple of emojis every now and then. Oh God, no, guys, do not accept the Facebook request from a young child because it's just emoji after emoji after emoji like just thousands of them. And it doesn't stop at the emojis. Next thing I know, I'm getting voice chat messages and stuff. And I'm like, hey, how are you going? She's like, I'm great. So what are you doing? I'm like, I'm at work. What are you doing? She's like, I'm sitting in my room. It's a school holiday. It's got nothing to do. So I figured I'd talk to you and I'm like, oh, that's awesome. And the next thing I know, hey, by the way, can you help me with my homework and getting video calls? By the way, I've got this math question or at least it's too late to deny the fact that I am now a surrogate father. I have been officially adopted by this young girl. I don't think there's any way out of it. And honestly, I don't think I'd want to kind of get out of it because it's kind of cool in one way being like this cool old white guy, friend of hers. But then I'm also starting to fear that I might not be cool enough in the future because, you know, she's getting to those teenage years where I may not be the cool person anymore. And then I might have like that whole upset moment in my life where, you know, my child leaves me type of thing and moves on in the world and no longer needs her white uncle. My only fear is now that she finds this YouTube channel. So I need to start burying stuff. So if you guys start seeing videos just randomly disappearing or getting private or unlisted, it's for a reason, guys. It's for a reason. I'm going to keep that image, you know, the cool image, not the uncool image, the cool image. Anyway, that's pretty much it. If you liked this video, know what to do. I'll see you all in the next one. Peace.