Families, eh? Can’t live with ’em, can’t live…er, with ’em.
I love mine dearly. But like many people, I’ve had moments where I’ve tried to jump out of the family tree. Before I got married, my birthdays were marked by joke presents (Wonderpants and ‘How To Get A Man’). Now everything’s different. Instead I’m given Grannypants and ‘How to Keep Him’.
Of course, getting hitched doesn’t mean escape. Instead it’s another poor soul sucked into the family vortex. Christmas for example. Mum and dad thought it Hilarious to present us newlyweds with furry handcuffs and chocolate body paint. (‘Keeping the love alive, eh? Hahahaha’). Glen tried to crawl up the chimney and I spent the rest of the day trying to coax him back down for Trivial Pursuit.
I’ve spent most of my life laughing at my parents. But like it or not, I appear to be turning into them. What with Mum’s knobbly knees and Dad’s comic timing the future’s looking bleak.
We can’t pick what we inherit – but our lineage goes well beyond Aunt Ethel’s bunions. It stretches right back to Adam and a heart condition that will ultimately kill us. We can try and outrun the past, but blood will out. We’re trapped byour own flesh – like a cosmic groundhog day where we keep repeating the same mistakes – no-matter how hard we try. Unless, of course, something miraculous happens. Like being transplanted into a new family. One where I get a new identity, a new name and rescue from the curse of genetics.