I don't like "cousin"

Forewarning: This post is the result of my zoning out in my grammar class. It's gonna be random this time.

I don't like the word "cousin." When used in conversation, it goes without notice... but every time I write it, it conjures up old feelings of hostility and frustration. I avoid using it. I prefer terms like "offspring of my parent's siblings" or "children in my extended family similar in generation" (That's a joke. I use "cousin.")

My subconscious detest for the word (and it is subconscious- I certainly don't cuss under my breath as I write it) goes back to my learning how to spell it in elementary school...

You see, my classroom utilized, as many did, the rule that before the teacher would tell a student how to correctly spell a word, the child had to first prove that s/he made three attempts at the spelling. This practice made sense. It seemed especially fair to me because, much how I consider myself now, I was a wonderful speller and never had to resort to it. However, one day I was in class, writing along quite gleefully, when I halted in my thought process, stopped short in my realization that I couldn't spell a word. It was, of course, "cousin."

So, with only brief hesitation, I wrote out a few ideas of the spelling. (However, I'm pretty sure I was drawing a complete blank. Perhaps I had never seen the word in print, because I tend to remember words once I see them once. I had no idea how this word looked... but I still made some (however pathetic) attempts.) I recall at least 2, if not all 3, spellings including a letter "z."
I tried.
A "z" sounded pretty good to me.

So I took my list up to the teacher, already feeling frustrated at the interruption in writing and my lack of knowledge. Knowing me, I probably also felt put-off that I had to resort to something that only the "dumb" kids did. But I took my list up there. I showed the teacher and she, after looking it over, turned the list back around to me... and do you know what she said to me?! Instead of telling me how to spell the damn word, which she clearly did with every other student, she told me (me! The best speller in the class to whom this had obviously happened only by rarity) that I was "really close" and should "try again."

I couldn't believe it. This one stupid word that I didn't know- I tried and clearly did not know. I'm sure I probably stomped back to my chair. I probably stared at the three horrible attempts, was unable to see any other possibility, and threw in a double "z" into one of the forms. She gave me the correct spelling on my second humiliating trip to her desk, and you can imagine my anger when it was nothing like my "creative" versions.

Out of this whole experience, I learned two things.
1. The spelling of "cousin"... I will never, ever forget it
2. The necessity to know the spelling of every word in the English language to avoid future humiliation.

Haha.

And I guess this also proves that I have always been as anal as I am now with proper spelling.