A Bad Case of Cousins

We have cousins. It's kind of like having ants, except that you know, they're people, but they have the same sort of unexpected, inevitable, unstoppable quality. Cousins shouldn't be unexpected: we knew that this wedding, the first one of the new generation, of my cousin P's stepson, was coming up, but like an ominous bad dream, we kept on thinking it wasn't happening, or that through some kind of magical anti-cousin fairy the whole thing could be avoided. Impossible, of course. Once you have cousins you have to see the entire weekend through: there is no escape.

It's not that I dislike my cousins. Actually I really enjoy them: they're nice people. I try to avoid them because I feel inferior: my cousins weem to have all successfully mastered this life thing. They have Marriages and Houses and Careers, and their kids go to good private schools and on to good colleges and then even their kids get Careers that are all far more worthwhile than anything I have ever done in my whole life. My brothers and my mother and I all say that this is because we, unlike our cousins, are Imaginative, Artistic, Creative and Sensitive and it is true that the cousins don't seem to spend acres of their lives crouched in dark smoky bars worrying about the Meaning of It All, which pursuit, of course, my family excels in. Also, they're all jocks. A couple of them came damn close to qualifying for the Olympics in tennis, and they all have the hearty off handed grace of jocks. It's good to see them. I'm glad they're all here. And they know me, which is why I have ended up at this wedding this weekend despite determined protests on my part: they wouldn't let me wiggle out. Damn.

So anyhow, I have Cousins this weekend, which explains why I just finished vacuuming the living room at 1:00 on Saturday morning.
M said, "What the hell, cousins. What am I supposed to do with them?"
And I said, "Some of them are very pretty girls," which elicited only a snorting noise.
"I'm leaving," he said, "Or I'll just say hello and go back to World of Warcraft. I mean, what am I supposed to DO with them?"
"I don't know," I said helplessly, "Play kick the can or something?"
"That," said M with enormous dignity, "is the total lamest thing I have ever heard. Dude."

Ah well. I love them very much, and it's awesome to see them, and all these kids are growing up by leaps and bounds, and all in all, you know, cousins are better than ants. It is way better to have cousins than ants. Dude.