Not Being Cryptic About Your Dislike

My mother got it into her head that I liked Cryptic Crosswords (the clues are word puzzles). Worse, it happens in a year when I’m living with my aunt instead of her for convoluted family reasons, so the first I know of this is when I visit around my birthday. I am also seventeen at the time, with no ability to blunt my opinions.

Mum: “Since you like cryptic crosswords, I got you this book to help you learn how to solve them better!”

She looks at me with the beaming pride of a parent who just got you a pony.

Me: “What? I hate cryptic crosswords. Where did you get the idea that I liked them?

Mum: “But… I’m sure you like them. Oh, well, here’s your present.”

When I leave, she doesn’t let me forget the book.

Mum: “You just need to learn how to do them, and then you’ll like them.”

I deliberately leave the book behind when I go back to the aunt’s place. It comes up on my next visit.

Mum: “I’ve been loving these cryptic crosswords; this book is so useful for them. Come sit here and solve some with me.”

Me: “Absolutely not. I told you last time, I hate them.”

Mum: “But they’re so easy and clever! Here, listen to this!”

For the next agonising half-hour, she tries to convince me of how much I’m “missing out” by reading out the questions and then explaining how to work them out. I am bored out of my skull and less engaged than I would be with a regular crossword, which is already dangerously unengaged.

Me: “No, stop. I am not on board. I don’t like these questions. I think they’re smug, and they make my brain hurt. I don’t want to do this.”

Mum: “But you love cryptic crosswords?”

Me: “No, you love cryptic crosswords. I like Sudoku.”

Mum: *Confused* “But you like them.”

On the next visit, the crosswords were not brought up, and I made it to the Christmas visit, thinking things had finally settled down… until I opened my presents. There was a brand new book of cryptic crosswords and how to solve them.

This goes alongside my memory of being eight years old and declaring, “But I hate ABBA!” when opening gifts and getting a very unwanted CD.

I still don’t know where she got the idea that I liked the darn things.