But what if

Gladys was raised by a series of nannies. She did not meet her mother and father until the day of their wedding, by which time Gladys was already married herself, to John. John used to ask her why she never tried to learn about her parents but she said she was interested in other things, like Pol Pot, and it never really crossed her mind.

Gladys had a favorite nanny named Mrs. Philbert. Once Gladys had been fully reclined in her father's favorite armchair--he had deposited the armchair along with his sample at the sperm bank; he wanted his future child to have something impersonal to remember him by. She had, at the time of this particular reclining, two Altoids in her mouth. Mrs. Philbert thought one Altoid was more than enough, so Gladys had two, or three once, but that had made her eyes water though she would not have admitted so even under duress.

"Philbert," she said, for Philbert was Mrs. Philbert's first name; she kept her last name a secret even to her family. "Philbert, if I fall asleep like this" by which she meant in near-full recline, "could I choke on my Altoids and die?" 

Mrs. Philbert said, "Let's never find out." This became a bit of a game with them. Gladys tried to keep finding things to find out about which Mrs. Philbert would prefer ignorance. "Can you pass kindergarten if you kill the class hamster?" "How many years would it take people to forget I peed myself during the talent show?" "Is there something so bad that if I do it you won't love me anymore?"

It came to be--let's never find out--Gladys started to think--let's never find out--life itself was a bit of a game--let's never find out--in which you tried to get all the way from Go to Gone without--let's never--finding out--find out--as much as you can. 

Gladys had a child's endurance for taking turn after turn of the same old game, day after day (which you'd think would prepare you better for adult life than it does, really), and her questions wore Philbert down until, during one of those times when she was not-thinking about her not-parents, she asked, "How much anger is too much?"

"Let's never find out," Philbert said with a smile, and she never did. Instead, she died. 

The next day, Miss Dinglewood showed up. Dinglewood of course was not her first name, nor her last. It was an alias she used while on the lam as a runaway bride. Her classic tagline, a very un-Philbert philosophy, was "Let's find out together!" which Gladys found repulsive.