Family meals out and immaturity

My mother has decided my sister and I are now mature adults in our own right, and old enough for her to talk about sex with us.
Quite why she chose this particular family meal is beyond me, as my sister and I hadn't seen each other in a while, and there's something about adult siblings getting together that automatically reduces them to children. And the parent into a gibbering wreck.
The conversation had mainly been about teasing each other and coded threats to expose various secrets to mum, and just sheer wit on my part, as demonstrated below:

Sister: '*lists reasons why I'm a freak of nature and childish* See? I rest my case.'
Me: 'Yeah, well, I rest your face. HA!'
See?
 Pure wit.

Anyway. I digress.
Mum decided we were all adults on this occassion. I thought that this was the kind of open, adult, honest relationship I wanted with my mum, and is what I was always envious of with friends and their open minded parents.
However. It turns out however old I am, I'm never going to be old enough to react calmly to any comments my mother makes about her own sex life.

Mum: “next time I have a man in my life, I don’t think I’ll rush into having sex with them this time, it’s just not really so easy at my age”

Me: *chokes on food* “mum! I’m eating! Seriously?! *pours more wine* I was really enjoying that lasagne.”

“So eat it”

“I can’t. You’re always telling me to eat more. And then you say things like that. Why? Whyyyy? *starts guzzling wine*”

“oooh, don’t be silly! We’re all grownups here! I can enjoy sex just as much as anyone else, if not mor...”

“*chokes* ...ok, now you’ve ruined the wine for me too.”

“oh, Ali, it’s all the same, nothing changes when you get older”

“no, its just everything moves south, eh?” * leans across table, pokes her chest with a wooden spoon* “exhibit A”

“oh, don’t be childish”

“you’re the one talking about rude things at the dinner table!”

All of this turned to airing general grievances about our bodies (in a sensible, adult, non-squeamish way – I AM capable of it occasionally), and it reminded me of a post (or it may have been in one of her books) Brooke Magnanti once wrote back when she was still just Belle de Jour – the anonymous blogger and call girl, about a conversation between her mother and grandmother, where, as her mother complains about her pubes rapidly approaching all grey colouring, the grandmother scoffs, and says ‘honey, that’s nothing, what you need to worry about is when they all start to fall out.’ ***

With this thought in mind, I very nearly announced to the table (and in my slightly inebriated state, no doubt that would have meant the whole restaurant)
'Well, I dye my pubes bright red - it distracts men from the rest of me'
I can only imagine silence, bug eyes, and tumbleweed resulting from this statement. There are somethings my mum just isn't ready for, no matter what kind of adult conversation she thinks we're ready for. The fact I have neon pubes may blow her mind. FYI, they're poppy red. I'm considering neon blue next. Or lagoon blue. At least that way, should I ever catch crabs (and I never have, thank you very much) they'd feel at home in oceanic pubic hair.

Our adult conversation was going quite well once I'd managed to choke my inner freak, until we came to order pudding. In a lull in the conversation, which was at that point about men, my mum suddenly glazed over and said, apropos to nothing:
"bananas."
"*surprised look*"
" *looks focused again* well, I think we all know what we all want"
"what??!!!!?? What the hell, mum, enough with the sex talk!"
"What are you talking about? We're want the raspberry brulee for pudding, don't we?"
"Oh. I thought you were talking about penises."


Turns out she was just thinking about doing a quick grocery shop. And once again, I got the blame for having an immature, inappropriate mind.


*** I'm paraphrasing. I wanted to link directly to it, but can't find it. I have, however, just spent an hour going over some of her old posts, which are brilliant.