The Asparagus Trait

I spit in the little test tube, sealed it up, and sent my DNA off to be processed at one of those ancestry labs. I wanted to find out if all those family stories were true.

My father claimed he was of noble French ancestry. That’s why I’ve always felt a strong kinship to Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, who wasn’t really French since she was born in Austria. My father also claimed Native American lineage, Cherokee, to be exact. It’s possible I got my love of writing from Sequoyah, a Cherokee brave. He created the Cherokee writing system but was accused of witchcraft for using magic to communicate without talking.

My mother claimed her family was descended from German farmers. Maybe that is where I got my green thumb. I like to grow patio tomatoes in the summer and plant petunias in a pot by the front door. I also love watermelons and judged the Miss Watermelon pageant three years in a row.

Finally, a 28-page document, that held the secrets of my ancestry, landed in my inbox. Did I have a connection to Marie Antoinette? Could I claim Cherokee lineage? Was I a descendant of German farmers?

The answer was a definite “no” to all of the above. My French and German ancestry totaled 7.7%. I didn’t have enough Native American ancestry to produce a reading on the chart. I am 98.4% Northwestern European, and 70.6 % of that total is British and Irish. I’m not who I thought I was.

However, I discovered some variant genes that affect my behavior.

For instance, if I eat asparagus, I have a trait that causes my pee to have a rather unpleasant “asparagassy” kind of odor. Why would they even put that in the report? Who wants the world to know about that?

Another food trait that I inherited involves the herb cilantro, also called Mexican parsley, made from leaves plucked from the coriander plant. To me, cilantro tastes like dirty socks smell. Yes, even guacamole.

It appears that I did not inherit any of the attractive traits, like dimples. Mario Lopez has the cutest dimples, Shirley Temple has the most famous dimples, and Betty White has the most adorable dimples. Michael Douglas inherited that sexy cleft in his chin from his famous father, Kirk Douglas.

Danish researchers found that some redheads inherit a trait that allows them to withstand stinging pain, like getting a shot, better than blondes or brunettes. The next time the book club met at my house, I “accidentally” stuck Peggy, a redhead, with a needle when I handed her a book. She screeched, loudly. I did the same thing to Carolyn, who is blonde. She screeched as loud as Peggy, proving what I have long suspected. Peggy is not a natural redhead.

My sweet tooth is another inherited trait. Peggy, however, continues to maintain that I have a sugar addiction. Whatever. I no longer make excuses for my chocolate craving by saying that I lack magnesium (chocolate is high in magnesium). When caught binge-eating a bag of chocolate chip cookies, I claimed a dopamine deficiency. Dopamine can affect your mood, and nobody wants to hang out with a moody person. When discovered eating chocolate cherry ice cream out of the carton with a soup spoon, well there is no excuse for that one.

Now, I just smile when I ask for another piece of cake and say “it’s genetic.”