Revelations

Mom wears pantyhose to the Safeway. This may not mean a lot to you, as many mothers may don expensive socks that invariably rip while they maneuver 30-pound jagged-edged metal vehicles around a grocery store, but it's telling. I have never seen my mother in jeans, not once - not ever - in my 33 years. I am quite sure that I have never heard her say the word "balls," not even to refer to a sporting element or snow sphere; I can say with some certainty that she told friends at her luxury compound that her daughter took up "soft lobbing" for the company team last spring.

Over slices of pizza at Costco, then, it might surprise even you that Mom suggested my sister and I get the new HPV vaccine.

You see, I've been struggling lately with boundaries, and the idea that I should buy some, if not at Costco, at a therapy session nearby. Moms don't need to know a lot that we tell them about our lives, with the happy exception of my sister smoking a lot in high school and taking the grey Caddy out for many an unchaperoned late-night excursion - that they HAD to know - but I have the genetic mutation that causes me to spew spontaneously details that should remain solely mine.

Like how much credit card debt I'm carrying.

Like that time a boyfriend told me he didn't feel comfortable around them.

Like the fact that sometimes I don't like to wear underwear.

I reveal things I shouldn't about how much I paid for highlights and a handbag in one God foresaken paycheck and that I won't be able to call because I won't be home until 3 am. But I have not once - and I mean ever - talked to my mother about sex. Thus my response.

"We can't, Mom." I said. "We're too old."

It's a truthitude. Rumor has it that both beauty and the vaccine cap at age 26.

"But you haven't had sex yet," she responded.

And I thought of how I'd be bursting her bubble, and how I'd made it three decades with one final boundary intact. And as I shoved more delicious crust in my mouth, I also considered that for 33 years, Mom has thought in some ways that I'm someone I'm not. And so I said it.

"Mom," I started. "Come on now. Wouldn't you feel sorry for me if I hadn't had sex in 33 years? Please."

And I paused. And I didn't have to wait long.

"No."

And that was it. And that's as close as we're going to get to it. In her eyes, her daughter will die a virgin, and I'm left looking for boundaries out for pick up by the curb.