Cousins Are People Too

My parents grew up in the same small town. When I say small town I mean no stoplights; elementary, middle and high school housed in one brick building; and, at least in the case of my extended family, inadvertent small town incest.

My aunt is the first cousin of my uncle.

Sounds pretty iffy, yes?

If we tease it out further: one of my uncles is married to the first cousin of another one of my uncles.

Yup, my dad's brother is married to the cousin of my dad's brother-in-law.

That is, my dad's brother is married to my mom's sister's husband's cousin.

If we were to break it down into a fake equation, it would look something like this:
[Maternal Aunt + Her Husband] + [Paternal Uncle + His Wife], where Her Husband and His Wife = First Cousins = 
Inadvertent Small Town Incest.

So what comes of such a situation? Nothing interesting at all. Except, when at the wedding of my cousin, I have to explain how my aunt from the other side of my family is in attendance because she happens to be my cousin's second cousin. That conversation can get a little awkward when you factor in an open bar.

******

I, too, grew up in a (different) small town and attended the same school as two of my (other) cousins. There were a total of 450 people in my high school - my cousins and I shared little interaction and graduated 3 or 4 years apart.

One holiday break, a few years into college, I had dinner with the family of good high school friend. I listened as my friend's mother told the saga of their farmhand (another one of my schoolmates) and his disintegrating marriage - it seems some "married floozy" had been carrying on with him and had convinced him to leave his wife, "a very sweet girl" who, by all accounts, was "criminally heartbroken."

I expressed my sympathy for the wife and wondered aloud who the married floozy might be (it was a small town, after all - perhaps we knew each other). The conversation quickly veered to a new topic as I continued to inhale my deliciously free meal and the night eventually ended when our respective gossip coffers ran dry.

Imagine my surprise a few days later when my cousin arrived at our annual Christmas gathering with a man who was not her husband. Rather, her guest happened to be one of our former schoolmates...and the farmhand of the family with whom I had recently dined.

Floozies are cousins too.