The Crooked and the Straight

I am one of seven cousins. We all grew up together around Cleveland, and we're all still very close. We are now all older than our parents were when they started having kids. Currently, we range in age from 23 to 34; our parents were all about the age of 23 when they were married and producing offspring.

Needless to say, there is some level of interest (some might say consternation) amongst the aunts and uncles in our little clan about when us "kids"--as we are still called--will start producing some grandchildren. While in Alaska, my cousins Mike and Allison and I--the eldest children in our respective families, and the most left-handed--decided to do something about this situation. Now, of course, we couldn't directly influence things, especially not in the ten days we vacationed together (no getting any funny ideas).

Instead, we settled on indirectly influencing our collective reproductive schedule with a scheme that would make Adam Smith proud: we decided to provide an economic incentive for someone in our family to have a baby. Together, we conspired to design a betting pool for guessing who will have the first three grandkids and when they will be born. The pool will run for 10 years. (We're in no hurry.)