My extended family is kind of massive. Conservatively estimating, I think I have around 4534 cousins. Not all of them love this blog. Over the years, the abundance of family has proved to be very, very good for support, inspiration, presents and... material.
If I want to tell a ridiculous, but true, story, chances are, one of my cousins once did/said/saw something crazy, and even if it's not that great of an anecdote, I can pepper it up enough to make it fab.
"My cousin let me watch the Chucky movies when I was like, 4, and when Rugrats first came on TV, it absolutely terrified me. Do you think they made the Chuckie character on purpose?"
"Ugh, the first time my cousin French-kissed a guy, she bit his tongue. He bled, and no one asked her out for the rest of high school."
"My cousin was in the Army when I was little, and did a really terrible job of explaining the North Korea/ South Korea conflict. I still don't understand it, and watching Sun and Jin on Lost always reminds me of it."
"When my cousin crashed her car, she lied and told the police someone had stolen it, and that person crashed it. But she totally cracked under the pressure, and had to go to juvie for a week."
"My cousin was supposed to be a recurring character on on Degrassi, but she lost like, a ton of weight, and the main girls got all mad and got her fired, and Canada revoked her work visa. You can still see her in some scenes if you watch the reruns on MTV, though."
As it turns out, it's a mite careless to identify someone only as "my cousin," when you have several hundred. And unbeknownst to me, people actually paid attention to these stories, and eventually asked the inevitable question:
"Wait, so your cousin did that? Is that the same cousin who's trying to have five babies in five years/ is in an AC/DC cover band/ dropped out of school to follow Lynryd Skynrd on a world tour?"
To which, the natural reply:
"Yeah, my cousin Caitlyn. She's older than me, that's how she's had time to do all that."
I think, if we were to coin a phrase, Caitlyn's a lying scapegoat. Anytime I want to lie, but can't/ won't be the lie's star player, Caitlyn swoops in, and saves the story. She's been an inspiration, a cautionary tale, a laughingstock...
I owe her so much.
(Note: if you are my cousin, and you're reading this, and I've mentioned a story about you... I'm sorry you didn't get credit. Actually, depending on the story, you can send me a thank-you note at any time for protecting your identity).
2 comments:
Post a Comment