Divide by Null - undefined

I visited my relatives today. One of them happens to be my younger cousin of about eight years.

I like children in small doses.

To put a long story short, my cousin can be very bossy, demanding, stubborn, manipulative, and sometimes lies jokes to get her way. I handled it by first submitting, eventually implementing passive-agressiveness (hide and seek? Ok... let me count to 560), then a short lecture when I finally snapped.

I had asked her to stop many times. The politeness in my tone and words slowly went from "uhh... please stop?" to "Stop. Now." I didn't notice, but I grabbed her wrist, and she said, "can you let go now?" I didn't. She never let me be when I asked.

At that last point, I lectured her on... well I can't remember. Her face, an uninterested smirk, a roll of the eyes, turning of the head, and a dissident "ok, whatever". I knew she wouldn't understand what I was talking about; I knew she wasn't listening, but I know she heard it, and I hope that one day she'll remember it.

I had seen that a serious tone had no effect on her current state, so I smiled and tacked on a "please?" Thinking a bit, trying to piece it all together, she said "You're weird."

I finally let go. At least I had told her what I wanted to say. In fact, she left me alone after that, so perhaps it did have an effect.

I can't really handle children. I'm too lenient at first, and my patience slowly deteriorates. They're nice, however. I think back to myself... I had a VERY protected childhood.

To sum it up, my skin tone darkened from two hours on in my cousin's inflatable water slide.