Didn't see THAT coming

Okay, so the electric company informed us that we were going to be shut down all day Wednesday, and randomly throughout Thursday and Friday.

That's my cue to bug out of here.

I just spent three blissful days at Camp with no power (I know! I said blissful and camp in the same sentence, and it really was!), but that was Camp, where I am not expected to do laundry and clean toilets and cook. I think that's why I like Camp. He does all the cooking. And there is no laundry, mocking me from the corner. And cleaning the outhouse consists of running a baby wipe around the gleaming white toilet seat.(Of course it's white. That way I know it's clean.)

Here, however, there is routine. There are Things That Need To Be Done.

Every day.

And they require power.

So I grabbed the kids, the checkbook, and a cooler, and off we went.

During our marathon Let's Get It All Done As Fast As We Can So We Can Go To The Hotel Pool And Swim Until Eleven O'clock shopping spree, we were driving the long stretch of Hell that is the road between Ellsworth and Bangor which is under construction.

I had the ipod cranked, a large Dunkin Iced in my hand, and a smile on my face, when...

...when my daughter hit me with this:

"Mom, did you know you can marry your third cousin?"

After I coughed up the coffee I choked on, I pulled over, construction zone be damned. This was important.

Kiddo, you can't marry your cousin.

Yeah, Mom, you can if it's your third cousin. There's a law.

Yeah, and they had to make that law because you're NOT SUPPOSED TO MARRY YOUR FAMILY.

Well, so-and-so on the island says his/her grandmother married...

And I lost it.

Listen, kid, there are SIX BILLION people in the world.

We meet new people every single time we leave the island, whether we're in Bass Harbor, Ellsworth, Bangor, Boston, Milford, or Down East Maine. If you can't find somebody to marry who isn't related to you YOU AREN'T TRYING.

She digested this.

But, Mom...why can't you?

Ooof. Backed myself into a corner here.

Because married people have babies. (uh-oh. Another corner. Divert! Divert!)

Talking fast, so she couldn't take advantage of a pause in my speech and begin listing all the single mothers she knows, I continue,

and if the parents are too closely related, it can cause birth defects in the babies, and that's not fair to those babies, now is it?

Then some road guard/DOT worker dude was banging on the car window, because we were pulled over in a dirt pile they were using, and he was not impressed with my

...I'm so sorry, but it was a teaching moment I couldn't pass up, my kid is growing up on an isolated island where the rules of normal society don't seem to apply and she's seeing things in a distorted way and I had to set that straight before she has a Family Wreath instead of a Family Tree...excuse.

And that was the end of that conversation.

There but for the grace of God, there go I...