The unforgiveable.

There are certain things I will forgive my mother for; giving me a perm that made me look like the first white child in history with an afro in Grade 7, never letting me watch 'Three's Company' (the lewdest show on telly don't ya know), taking circular bread to school that had been baked in a coffee tin. Circular bread. Imagine the sambos. These weren't easy but in the spirit of mother/daughter hatred/magnanimity I will let them be water under our troubled bridge.

But then there are times when currents run too deep. When Nessie rears her thorny head. When you hear Morricone's baleful Good, Bad & Ugly in your head at just the very thought. These are the unforgiveable.

Reading my diary when I was 16, that was unforgiveable. Recently telling me while squeezing my fatty midrif - that I'm just 'soft, soft all over', trying to force-feed my child JC...all unforgiveable. But quite possibly the worst - and I have a hard time saying this - was introducing Sophie to Andre Rieu.

If you're unfamiliar with him picture, if you will, a tosser. Now make him Dutch. Now give him golden-ish locks. Now toss those locks. Toss, toss, toss. *insert flounce*. Now give him deplorable taste. Add a dollop of Strauss.

My mother is a fan. She thought it would be educational to introduce Sophie to classical music. This, I'm all for. Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, my fave - Paganini. Too many to name. But Strauss? Strauss is to true classical music what Daniel O'Donnell is to trad music...what that fucking gobshite with the ringlets is to jazz...y'know who I mean...

To put it bluntly he's a tosser. Ads on PBS show him strumming his violin and flouncing his lion's mane to the blue rinse brigade. And they lap it up like ants on maple syrup.

And Sophie loves him. She thinks he's the bees fucking knees. She loves to do ballerina twirls and say 'I dance like this to Andre's music'. Oh yes, he's only Andre...they're on a first name basis.

If I put CBC on in the car and it's opera or what have you she enquires if it's 'Andre'. She asks me all the time if I like him, to which I emphatically state 'no' and under my breath 'not the fuck ever'...and she proudly, defiantly, in your face mama states 'well I do!'. It's toddler rebellion at its finest.

What the fuck. Can she not just develop a little pre-school meth habit? Does it have to be this dire?