What's Up, Doc?

I was sixteen when my Mother watched a documentary about teenage tearaways, freaked out big time with The Mommy Fear, and threw me into a year of couch sessions. I guess it must be kind of scary to envisage your only child being destined for a life as a trick-turning crack-whore. But then, my mother always has been a bit of a drama queen.

So, my mother leafs through the Yellow Pages and next thing I know, I'm signed up from here to infinity for weekly sessions of psychological torture. And it was torture. I had to sit in a stuffy, smelly little room every week for fifty endless minutes with a fuzzy-haired stranger regarding me impassively from behind her wire-rimmed glasses and occasionally muttering, well Sara, how do you feel about that?

I just didn't know what to say. I had nothing to say. Not a sausage. I mean, this therapist was an expert in teenage trauma and I was about as far from traumatised as you can get. So after a few weeks of painful silence - weeks of nothing but the clock ticking, feet tapping and the occasional heavy sigh from me - I got bored of trying to stare my therapist out and started to make stuff up. I had to entertain myself somehow and it sure wasn't going to happen unless I was the one to make the effort. So I borrowed a copy of Freud from the library and started conjuring up elaborate dreams packed full to bursting with phallic symbols. My dreams featured an alarming array of pillars, posts, mountains, fighter jets, rockets, swords, guns, baguettes, postboxes, pens, and even, to spice things up a bit one day when I sensed that my therapist's attentions were starting to wane, a giant florescent pink dildo with wings trying to attack my mother.

My therapist's verdict? I have penis envy.

I mean, duh! Thanks for nothing. I could have told myself that for free. What woman wouldn't love to have a cock all of their very own for a day? I mean, think about it - the possibilities are fascinating.

But maybe that's a topic for another time.