Mother: One - Me: Zero

"Darla and Warren's daughter! She's a real super girl. Goes to temple, has a nice car; she's a pediatrician or podiatrist, from what I understand. I can never remember which."

My Mother. Fifty-nine years old and still as persistent as ever in her quest to find me "a nice Jewish girl."

"Look, you can't cook, you can't clean... you're a louse! You. Need. Someone. Special!"

Her New York accent bends the "You're a louse" bit with the skill of a cabbie. Every time I come to my Ma's for dinner she corners me in the kitchen with the same old speal...

"Have you found anyone? - Have you at least been looking? - I know this teller at my bank, she's nice. She's got funny breath, like cinnamon really, but she seems very rational!"

My reply? Not yet, always, and for the hundredth time, I took her out on a date three years ago and her lazy eye kept looking at my right ear during dinner. Far from "rational."

"Your brother..."

Always, always my brother!

"...your brother and Marissa have three wonderful children, and they're quite happy."

Oh Ma. She fails to know that Marissa is a blistering alcoholic, and the three kids were hers from her first marriage.

"Here, take this..."

God, here we go...

"Take thirty dollars, and go buy a new shirt and some trousers. Maybe a belt. One of the braided leather ones?"

My Mother thinks I wear a wool sweater and gatkes under cut-off jean shorts on dates. The belt? I have no idea. She loves the idea of the slim braided belts from the 80s.

"Well, you might have enough money you groisser sheeser, but do you know what you're lacking?"

It's always common sense or brains or something.

"Brains!"

See.

"You have no drive. With this I'm going take the law into my own hands..."

Wait, this is new...

"That's right wise guy! Darla and Warren's daughter is coming here to dinner this evening, and if you fuddle this up, you'll answer to me!"

Touché! Touché! I could flee, but I wont. You never know, pediatrician or podiatrist, as long as she's not an alcoholic with a lazy eye, I'll take all the help I can get. Even from Ma!