As we were sitting at dinner listening to Oedipus Tex (long story) Joey said, “You know, in Children of Hurin, a brother and a sister got married, but they didn’t know they were related.  They found out awhile later, after they were married for awhile.”

“Huh.”  I said.

Children of Hurin, for those of you who are perhaps unfamilar, is another novel by J.R.R. Tolkien.

“Then what happened,” I said.

“They killed themselves.”

Gosh, delightful dinner conversation.

There was a contemplative pause while we chewed on our Italian Grilled Cheese sandwiches.  And then I said, “First of all, we’re not in much danger of that happening to us.  There’s pretty good photographic and genetic evidence that we aren’t, like, siblings or something.”

“True,” Joey replied.

“I mean, I haven’t seen you in any of my baby pictures.  And I’m definitely not in any of yours.”

“Definitely not,” Joey munched.

“And secondly, it’s not like we can reproduce without major medical intervention.  So I figure we’d be just fine and we wouldn’t have to kill ourselves or anything.  Like, should we discover we were related.”

“Also true,” Joey said.

And there you have it, Internet.  Nothing to worry about here.