You Can't Choose Your Parents...

I was summoned to lunch today by my mother. It happens once a month, usually scheduled to coincide with one of her shopping marathons. It's never a pleasant experience.

I'm sitting at a table in Harvey Nichols' top floor restaurant, idly picking at my fingernails because she's late, as ever, when I hear a voice trill, Sara! There you are!, like she's the one who's been waiting for me for the past half hour.

I look up from my scrutiny of my ragged cuticles and there she is, my mother, a vision in Jaegar, trotting over to me with the usual half-crazed look of elation in her eye following a morning of heavy Amex abuse. She puts down her shopping bags with the sort of care other people reserve for new-born babies, and goes, oh Sara! I can't tell you how exhausted I am! I have had such a hectic day! Then she air kisses me - keeping her make-up immaculate is one of my mother's primary concerns - and treats me to her infamous once-over. I'm obviously looking as disreputable as I normally do, because she purses her lips and goes, oh Sara, you could be such a pretty girl if only you tried a bit harder. Look at you! Shakes her immaculate highlighted bob, sighs, what kind of outfit do you call that?

I go, hi Mum.

My mother shakes her head with regret. Oh Sara, she says, a wealth of misery sounded with each syllable, as I've told you before, you are travelling on a one-way ticket to Nowhere Fast.

I'm like, oh God, here we go.

The great tragedy in my mother's life isn't my father leaving her for a younger, blonder and more malleable version (after all, my mother got the house and a whacking great divorce settlement, plus she doesn't have to put up with a man around making the house untidy anymore, kind of a win-win situation for her), the great tragedy is having me as her daughter. I am the complete opposite of what she had hoped for. The kind of daughter my mother dreams of is sweet, presentable, conventional, has tidy hair, and can make polite chit-chat at parties without getting drunk, offending anyone or being discovered half-naked in the downstairs loo with the vicar's nephew. To say that I am a major disapointment to her is an understatement.

So Sara, my mother ventures, toying with her (undressed) salad, what have you been up to? I'm like, oh you know, nothing much, same as usual. Are you still working at that ...club? she asks, the last word spoken as if she's just discovered something unhygenic on the sole of her shoe. I'm like, uhuh. Oh Sara, she says, you know I'd be more than happy to pay for you to do some kind of course, secretarial, maybe? Or maybe a nice cookery course? Prue Leith is very good. I make a non-commital grunt and she looks at me sharply. Surely you don't like working in that place? I mean, really Sara, it's hardly the kind of job with prospects, is it? Or the kind of place where you could meet a suitable man?

I groan. My mother is desperate to marry me off. I suspect that she thinks that I'm going through a special stage, a little rebellion that maybe has gone on a bit longer than is usual but that it will end as soon as she can wish me down the aisle. Obviously, marriage to a suitable man (definition of suitable: rich and halfwitted) will turn me into a shiny-haired, grinning fool with a censored vocabulary and sterilised mind. Ha! Fat chance, mommy dearest.

Considering my gene pool, it is possible that I am a complete and utter miracle.