The results are in and big surprise … I’M HUMAN! Just as I suspected. Some suggested I was part water bug, or had traces of wild dingo. But the DNA doesn’t lie. Turns out I’m still just a boring, slightly-graying man whose family history is exactly what we thought it was: unspectacular.
WOOHOO! Thank you saliva-scraping family origin DNA kit. You have determined the obvious.
But my mother was beside herself at the results. Always prone to audacious, grandiose statements, she declared over the phone: “This is incredible. Our family is the history of the world!”
Well, that was a bit of a stretch. If anything, all it had told us was we were true American mutts, which we already knew.
It wasn’t like we were a lost people searching for our family roots. My grandmother on my mother’s side was born in Cuba, and her family had moved there from Spain. Documented fact. My grandfather was born in Tampa, but his family had immigrated from Sicily. Documented fact. My father had been born in a steamer trunk, in Louisville, Ky. He had researched his family, and they were of European and British descent. Documented and fact.
But my mother had decided this wasn’t enough proof. So, she bought not one, but TWO DNA test kits for my brother and me on our birthdays. She was determined to solve the mystery-less mystery of where we came from. (My brother’s DNA kit cost $8 more than mine and came in a fancy box. I’m still sore about that!)
Total expenditure: $190. New information learned: 0
That didn’t stop my mother from being over-the-moon when she learned the news.
“Brian! Don’t you find this fascinating!?!” she screeched into the phone. Outside the phone lines vibrated from the pitch of her voice. “This test has VERIFIED what we have ALWAYS KNOWN!”
That is an exact quote.
“Mom, all this verifies is that you wasted $190,” I said. (Plus tax.)
“WHAT!?!?” she hollered through the receiver. Somewhere a digital phone circuit fried and had to reroute the call. “This was SO worth it! Now we know for sure. This proves that we came from where we came from. We have DNA evidence! Haven’t you seen the commercials where people think they’re Irish, but they’re really from Mozambique? We might have been from Mozambique! Do you really want to be from Mozambique?!?”
“Who’s talking about Mozambique!?!” I snapped back. “I don’t even know where Mozambique is! But if I were, THEN this whole thing might have been worth it.”
She hung up in a huff, disgusted with my lack of enthusiasm.
My brother is still waiting on results from his more expensive test. My mother anticipates big things with that one. Mainly that it will confirm what my test has already confirmed. Further proof that we’re not descended from space aliens … which would explain so much. Or what my brother was hoping for: That we’re adopted.
My mother is so excited, and I’m not sure my phone line can take another call like that.