I sat with my sister as we sipped coffee and flipped through the endless pile of catalogues she receives on a monthly basis. When I am home to visit, our usual routine upon wakening is to have our coffee while we sort through the catalogues in search of furnishings to fill a shared imaginary dream home. This routine allows us to collaborate on a project of sorts that is incapable of being jeopardized by time, distance, and hectic daily life schedules. The actual project is far less important than the brief moments of collaboration and connection. On this morning, however, I casually mentioned that I would like to have a job that paid me to sip the coffee I was drinking and critique the wares my sister and I were examining. She looked at me and said, “Well, what do you do? I mean, really.” I laughed thinking she was joking around. She wasn’t laughing. With pursed lips and a questioning look my sister had asked the dreaded question, “What is anthropology?” I honestly didn’t know in that moment how to answer her in a meaningful way. “The study of humans across time and space,” although perhaps technically correct, says little of what I do and why. I answered instead that I try to understand life through experiences not my own. “Huh,” she replied. That was the end of that conversation.