Mother and Daughter

Always her nose buried in a book. All the time I’m telling her, ‘Get out more while you can and get some excitement in your life! You’re so boring, so frigging dull!’

Why does she speak to me this way? So many of my friends tell me that the mother-daughter relationship for them is like having an extra best friend. My friends don’t go around town with their skirts up to their arse, on heels that defy the laws of physics and covered in cosmetic gunk. ‘You look like a tart’, I tell her.

‘Well at least I’m having fun in my life’. She is so frigging irritating. There’s no understanding between us – she makes no effort to meet me half way. Christ, I might as well be invisible sometimes, but even then she’d find something to moan about. And she waits up for me like I’m a child and spoils the evening saying ‘You come in at all hours, making such a racket and half cut. I don’t know what the neighbours think!’ They’ll probably wonder why she doesn’t go out, get slaughtered and enjoy herself once in a while. She doesn’t even have any hobbies, let alone friends. I can’t remember the last time she had a friend round. She just sits and reads that story book shit.

She doesn’t read. Life is just one big party, like there are no responsibilities to worry about. Parties and rows, week after week. Maybe if we’d moved house back then she’d have been calmer and the fresh start would have made her different. Maybe not. Anyway, she met Rod. ‘Rod by name and rod by nature, if you get my drift!’ She smirked. And his visits were more and more frequent, and sometimes he stayed overnight. God, I hope they use condoms!

I wish she’d treat Rod with more respect. He’s a visitor in the house, the least she could do is say hello, pass the time of day. He’s lovely. She should get to know him better, give him a chance ‘stead of judging the book by its cover. Jeez, she reads so many you’d think she knew that by now!

Rodney. Do they still call boys Rodney other than on Only Fools and Horses? She insists that I’ve got to like him. Says ‘He might become a fixture – you never know’. It’s just more housework. By the time he leaves for work on a Monday the house stinks of weed and there’s beer cans all over. Makes it look like a slum.

‘I think you need to tell your Rodney about how to treat other people’s homes when he’s a visitor. He’s so bloody slovenly!’
‘You leave him alone, he’s alright. It’s only a couple of cans …’
‘And the cannabis and the toilet seat wet and …’
‘F’crying out loud! Shut it will you! There’s more important things to worry about than dirty ashtrays. I think I’m pregnant’
‘Oh, Mum!’