I’m going to tell my real mom!! And she’s going to come and get me!
I wanted so much to believe, as so many perfectly happy and well loved children do, that I was secretly adopted from somebody interesting, exciting and foreign. Switched at birth or stolen from my birth-mother who was probably a rich celebrity and would certainly have let me eat gum and cotton candy for supper whenever I wanted, get a perm, and stay up to watch Saturday Night Live every crack of Sunday, like any decent parent would. I pushed and prodded and bullied.
“TELL ME THE TRUTH!!! WHERE IS MY REAL MOM??”
but my not-my-real mom refused.
“I just want to talk to her. I just have to tell her something. Do you have her phone number at least??”
Sure! I look just like both my fake parents smooshed together.
And sure! I appear to have inherited the plague that is their feeling smarter, sassier and generally superior to all other living things attitude, but that could just as easily be a learned behaviour.
Also, they both can spell and have an excellent command of english grammar which is a pretty clear indication that we probably do not share DNA.
I know for a fact that my Grandmother Rose (may she rest in eternal self righteousness) would agree that there is cause for suspicion,
“Where did that giant butt come from? Definitely not my side of the family”, she insisted. And certainly not from my mother’s, as none of her relatives even have one – to speak of.
And where did I get these fat lips? This gloriously ample bosom? These deformed little child’s feet? The patchy barely eyebrows? The moustache? Where??
I have begged, pleaded and sifted through their sock drawers, but come up empty every time. Nobody will grant me the decency of a solid lineage.
“Please! Something! Just give me something! Were we immigrants? Vagrants? Pirates? Royalty?”
“You had a paternal great grandmother that had that disease… you know, the one from the movie Awakenings…”
So I’ve taken it upon myself to register on Ancestry.com and start searching for the truth.
And by searching I mean obsessing.
And by truth I mean a glimmer of hope that somehow, someway, I might possibly be eligible for a European passport. I would GLADLY renounce citizenship and hand over my American one for it. Although I imagine, thanks to you-know-who, I would be hard pressed to find anyone who would take it these days.
It doesn’t have to be Italian specifically, but as long as my family is going to continue to insist that I’m rightfully theirs, Italy is my only hope. I was going to try for French but my grandmother Mauricette threatened me with violence if I mentioned her name to the French authority; Muttering something about paperwork, undocumented post war re-entry to Paris (defection from the US) and making her life a living hell.
I am planning a trip to the Italian consulate this week to ask for help finding out if my alleged great-grandfather Vito and his wife Carmella were already Naturalized Americans when Rose was born in New York. But as my own personal Plan B, in case they show me to the door, I have taken it upon myself to order a DNA test. I’m secretly hoping for Mexican descent but I’ll settle for anything mediterranean-ish if need be.
Spit in tube *check* Inject highly toxic stabilizing liquid into tube *check* Shake for at least 5 seconds *check* Insert tube in bag and seal *check* Insert bag in box and seal *check*
Mail to Ireland? *check*
Only 6-8 weeks before I find out if I’m part Basenji!