I’ve only seen my Uncle Bill (<-not his real name) five times in my life. Well, six if you count the last time we… saw each other. I’m choosing my words carefully as usual: Saw each other.

He and his family always lived in Chicago, and going to visit them as a child was my first trip there, which established it as a city that is not for me. I’ve been to Chicago about 10 times in my life, and every time something awful has happened to me. So I don’t plan to ever go there again. Chicago: The city that doesn’t work.

Bill is my dad’s older brother, but they aren’t close. Which is to say, they don’t ever speak to each other.

About six years ago I was in Western Michigan for my old college friend’s wedding. The reception was at a hotel restaurant. I had had several cocktails and was enjoying catching up with old friends. I was seated at a table where the bar was in eyeshot. I always like to keep the bar where I can see it.

I looked over and saw a 70ish-year-old man, bald with freckles on top and a fringe of close-cropped gray hair around the base of his head, frameless glasses, satin vest, bow tie, name badge. I was immediately about 80% sure that was my Uncle Bill. We made fleeting eye contact, then he looked down at a glass he was polishing.

I’m not really close with any of my relatives. We stopped having family reunions when I was about 12. Since then I only see them all at funerals. The last time I had seen Uncle Bill was at Grandma Shrake‘s funeral, where he gave a moving benediction. Like many Shrakes, he’s a part-time minister. Mainly a retired insurance salesman, though.

And apparently now he’s a sommelier at a hotel on Lake Michigan. I wouldn’t have known this, and didn’t, since I have zero contact with him or anyone else who would have tipped me off that he worked at this hotel.

I felt as exposed as he did. I felt like an interloper into his little world of wine. I mean, I don’t really know him so I don’t want to project feelings onto him that he doesn’t have. But I could have sworn that in that flicker of eye contact we made a silent agreement that it would be entirely too awkward for us to speak to each other. And thus the chance passed. Just like when you see someone you know at 50 paces on the street, and you make a split decision to pretend to look down at your cell phone or Walkman so you don’t “see” them and you don’t have to make lame small talk.

However, in this case my uncle and I were both obligated to be in the same room with each other for at least two more hours.

After Uncle Bill poured some wine and walked away, my old friend said, “Scott, did you notice the wine guy’s last name?” I nodded. “Come over here,” I said. I took my friend out in the hall by the payphones and begged him not to tell anyone that was my uncle. He just laughed, and thought it was silly and weird, but agreed.

A short time later my other friend noticed, too. I made the same pact with him. He relished being in awkward proximity as my uncle consulted with the table on what wines to drink. His eyes grew wide and he smiled a crooked smile as my uncle poured me a glass of wine, still with no acknowledgment having taken place between us that we were related.

One friend whispered over my plate to the other, “Did you know that the sommelier is actually Scott’s estranged uncle?” I shushed him with a pained look and reiterated that this situation was not to be talked about.

We finished the reception and moved across the road to a different hotel to have a beach party. By this time it was safe to discuss the avuncular oddness that had happened. Everyone had a laugh about it. No one could understand how I could not have known that my own uncle worked at that hotel. “How many uncles do you have?” asked one wedding guest incredulously. “More than 50 or something? How can you lose an uncle?” I told her I wasn’t sure how many, but I knew I had fewer than 10 uncles.

Well, now I am an uncle myself, as of a year ago. I plan to stay close to my nephew so that 30 years from now if I’m doing my act at a nightclub or something and he walks in with his friends, he’ll be proud to introduce me and say, “You guys! This is my Uncle Scott!” Of course, I’m his one and only blood uncle. So it’s different. I can’t get lost or forgotten, because there’s only one of me.