Cousins

My family is of Irish Catholic descent, meaning, there are a lot of us. Meaning, there are so many of us that no one knows how many of us there are. I only have one sibling, but I have 26 first cousins: they have so many kids, that I have no idea how many kids they have. Too many to count. We have cousins everywhere, and more are popping up all the time. My niece recently learned that a guy she was in high school with is actually her cousin.

I have cousins all over Ireland, whom I have never met, cousins in California whom I have never met, cousins in Australia, whom I have never met, and cousins in Chicago, most of whom I have never met. And those are just the ones we know about, but this post is about the one cousin from Chicago whom I have met.

I was in my late twenties, at the 50th wedding anniversary party for one of my mother’s cousins. A very good looking, well dressed guy in his thirties came over to me and started chatting me up. I was flattered, and receptive to his overtures. It didn’t last very long, though: we really only spoke for a minute or two, when some older woman came over and joined us. I had never seen this woman before, and have not seen her since: I know nothing about her, but she knew everything about us. She immediately informed this guy and me, very enthusiastically, that he and I were cousins. She then gave a detailed explanation of the family tree, and described to us exactly how we were related to each other, but neither of us was listening to her. The guy, whose name I cannot remember, if I even knew it in the first place, listened to her for a minute or two, then looked at me, rolled his eyes, and walked away. And I laughed, and laughed, and laughed, on the inside, anyway. I can’t remember if I was actually laughing, but it was so funny. He made no attempt to talk to me again, and I never saw him again. LOL 🙂