SANDY FRASER | Youth | CONTACT
A man from Betoota’s flight path district has made it a decent way into his life without making any effort to understand how the cousin family tree works.
“My mum’s cousin is my second cousin right? And then her kids are my third cousins, I think?” Jerome Davies says.
“Oh ffs, is that not right? What are they then, my first cousins once removed, or second cousins once removed? Or twice removed?”
“What about if my great grandma’s sister’s kid has a kid, how am I related to that? That’d be like third cousin thrice removed or something right?”
Our reporter admits she doesn’t actually know, either.
“What the fuck does any of that even mean? Once removed from what?”
“I’m 30 now and I’ve never had any trouble referring to them as my third cousins and what not, I mean, what’s the harm in that? Why did we have to go and introduce another term that just makes everything about ten times more confusing? It’s just an unnecessary headache.”
“This is one of those things that should be taught in school, like taxes. Instead I read about 4 Shakespeare plays and didn’t understand a word.”
Jerome navigates to an “explain it to me like I’m 5” Reddit thread, and attempts to educate himself, but to no avail. He closes the tab and sighs deeply.
“Fuck it. I’m just going to pretend I’m from one of those families that calls anyone I’m distantly related to my cousin. Like one of those ones that calls their family friends their cousins. No one will question that surely.”
“And tbh, I only see my second cousins once removed, or first cousins twice removed, whatever the fuck they are, like twice a year. Maybe I’ll just delete them from facebook and pretend I’ve moved overseas so I never have to refer to them again. Yeah, that’ll be sound.”
More to come.
