I like details and explanations. Of everything. At extended family parties, I would question my mom for an hour afterward on the technical family title for everyone at the party. "Is Lois a second cousin?"..."How is Brian related, would he be a first cousin, twice removed?" Yeah, I was a ceaseless kid, the sort you buy an encyclopedia for and hope the questions slow to a trickle. Today, we'd buy a child a computer and show him the Internet. I might have melted down if I had that sort of access to knowledge as a child. I probably should have spent more time at summer camp.

I now have access to the Internet and am able to answer all the questions for which my mom didn't have the answers...What's a "first cousin, twice removed" mean? And is that what I should call Brian?

Addendum: The one time I did go to summer camp, my sleeping bag was filled with shaving cream and I was hoisted to the dorm rafters by my popular, evil classmates. No surprise I pleaded to my parents to never send me again. I made good with summer camp in college by volunteering for a summer as a counselor. Nobody was suspended from the rafters and the sleeping bags were free of shaving cream.