Dear Love Attorney,
My psychoanalyst told me recently that I unconsciously want to sleep with my mother. Hearing this, I was quite surprised, because I never knew my mother and was raised by my dad. In that sense, my dad is both my mom and my dad. But my analyst told me further that I also have latent jealousy and hatred towards my father because I desire my mother. However, if my dad was symbolically my mom, I don’t think I should be jealous of him—for they were one and the same (father even lost his member in a pottery-wheel accident, rendering him incredibly similar, physically, to my mother). This entire experience has been, as you can imagine, very confusing for me: I don’t know who to hate and who to lust after (unconsciously, of course). What do you recommend, Love Attorney? What should I feel towards whom?
– Eddy Puss in Vienna
PS. I smell like spoiled sauerkraut and I love Mubarak and want to kill and eat all the kittens of the world.
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Dear Eddy,
Ah, how the tables have turned! I remember you well, Edward. In my Viennese childhood, I dreaded the days at the kindergarden for nothing else than your ceaseless recess-time mockings where by you would sit beside me on the bench whilst I was speaking to a playmate, and whenever I said something of the slightest sexual nature you would—like an annoying canyon-wall—echo back what I said and add “your mother” to it. I could never talk about my budding penchants for pig-wrestling (‘your mother’s covered in mud’) or taxidermy (‘Your mother looks good stuffed’) with you around, and you were always around; the fingers of your sauerkraut breath brushing softly my shoulder and making my ears tremble and sweat with anxiety. My young and nervous temperament could not take your mockery of Mother Attorney. This is why I became interested in law—its language is so asexual and boring that you could never make it dirty.
But such sweetness is revenge served up by destiny, for now, you—the “your mother”-er of my darkest dreams—are asking me for advice about your own Oedipal confusions! Well, I won’t give you any advice. So enjoy your nerouses, Edward Puss.
With Hatred,
The Love Attorney