KSNCUSIN

What is a "kissing cousin" exactly? I've heard that phrase all my life, and yet I cannot provide a solid definition. Does it refer to people that fall in love with their cousins? Are they people that marry their cousins? Are they just very close family members?

Amazingly enough, the internet does not necessarily solve this conundrum as definitively as I would desire. One definition says that it has a literal meaning - cousins that kiss when they greet each other. Another refers to cousins that marry each other.

When the meaning for this phrase is rather ambiguous depending on your background or personal definition of the phrase, why would anyone put this on their license plate?

Ms. Silver VW Convertible, did you marry your cousin? Do you like to kiss your cousins when you meet them? Are you secretly in love with one of your cousins? Are you an only child who has cousins that have become like your brothers or sisters? Why have you informed everyone that you are a "kissing cousin"? What does it mean to you?

Your license plate, KSNCUSIN, has served to raise questions rather than share a bit of personal information. You were sitting there with the top down. I should have rolled down the window and shouted a question your way: Why are you a kissing cousin?

I guess that I shall never know. You must be the wrong kind of "kissing cousin" because you have tortured me with questions I will never get the answers to. You must have married your cousin. Worse than that, you must have married your first cousin. How could you? (on both counts)