Column: Double Vision
We’re on a quest. A quest to mess with genetics and appear on various local news programs and daytime talk shows for doing so. Oprah, Montel and even “The Tony Danza Show” could never resist the genetic drama we have planned.
We’re talking cousins who are genetically brother and sister, parents who double as their own kids’ aunts and uncles and the end of extended family as we know it. The plan put simply: identical twins plus identical twins equals tiny family reunions and confused babies.
If we, as twins with matching DNA, can manage to trick other identical twins into marrying us, our kids would genetically be brother and sister, as well as cousins. We couldn’t argue over who had the crazier in-laws because they would be the same people.
We couldn’t even compete over who had the more attractive or intelligent husband because that battle isn’t even worth fighting. We hate revealing our dirty little secrets, but one advantage of having a twin is being able to talk about anything – or anyone – and not having to worry about the word getting out or feeling guilty about it.
Don’t judge us, you do the same thing, only you’re not lucky enough to have your mom know all the same people you do. But joining two sets of twins in marital bliss ruins this lifelong gift.
Not only would we be unable to talk crap on our sister’s family to our own husband, but we couldn’t even complain about our own husband’s flaws to our twin. Either way, with twins, the word will inevitably get passed along to the other twin.
To illustrate our point, let’s say Lindsay goes to pick up the kids from Lexie’s house and finds them running around with scissors and playing with a Ouija (wee-jee) board that Lexie and her husband carelessly left laying around. Lindsay can’t go home and vent to her husband about their inept parenting skills because the man in that relationship just happens to be her husband’s twin.
Or, for example, neither of us could complain about our husband’s bad fashion sense, poor grammar or anything else they might have in common, because that’s just insulting your sister’s man.
That’s not even scratching the surface of the genetic powers we hold. Let’s face it, babies aren’t all that smart. And if that baby’s mom and dad happen to have identical counterparts nearby, that kid could face some severe post-partum confusion. When you are under the impression that you are being rocked to sleep by your mom and, in the meantime, you see her standing in front of you – panic may set in.
One of the major flaws in our quest is lack of equal commitment to this newsworthy life plan. While Lexie has her hopes up for a life of twin matrimony and then resulting invasive news coverage, Lindsay isn’t so convinced. Lexie frequently and publicly refers to her hopes of finding those perfect twin companions, but Lindsay often replies with statements like, “We can’t afford to be that picky” and “When you tell boy twins that we are in search of twins to marry, that sounds a little forward.”
But we both agree a few daytime talk show appearances would be well worth the drama, confusion and long, lonely years of searching for our dreamy twin husbands.
Lexie and Lindsay are both juniors in Print Journalism. Please email any comments or questions or male twins to lindsaykite@cc.usu.edu