Orna Mulcahy on people we all know
Judy thinks she must have the worst life of anyone she knows. Here she is, rigid with fatigue from a 10-hour day at the office and now she's come home to find wet washing draped all over the radiators, and no bread for the children's lunchboxes and the corner shop is closed.
"Is it too much to ask to have fresh bread in the house?" she bellows to no one in particular as Tony and the children sidle quietly out of the room, leaving her to grapple with the new cordless telephone which Tony, in one of his more sadistic moments, has tampered with so that she can't even get her own mother on the line without a lot of futile button punching and ear-piercing beeps that brings her to the brink of tears as she finally gets through to tell Mummy what an awful life she has. "Why do I always have to think of everything?" she wails ... "it's so unfair."
More than unfair, in fact. Judy feels that she is positively jinxed because when she gets up the next morning, apart from there being no bread, her hair is standing on end and her skin is all shiny and spotty like the surface of the moon. Also, her clothes are suddenly too small and utterly frumpy, and yes, that's a ladder down the back of her only clean pair of tights. What really brings her to the brink of hysteria, though, is sitting aimlessly in traffic and suddenly remembering her early morning dental appointment, for which she is going to be billed in full. None of this is her fault. And it's certainly nothing to do with plunging hormone levels. It's just that she is exhausted from doing everything for everyone, and they will all be sorry when she is dead.
These and other dark thoughts pass through her head as she yearns for a) a monastery to check into for some peace and quiet and b) a bar of Fry's Chocolate Cream. Then she misses the turn so that she is sucked into a hellish one-way system that goes all over town - idiot planners - before looping back to the carpark, so that now she really wants to kill someone, preferably whoever designed the coat that makes her look like a pasty old undertaker she has just bought in a fit of self-pity.
It couldn't be PMT again, could it? Surely she had that last week? But yes, it is, and what a relief that the throbbing behind her eyes is just your normal tension headache due to low magnesium levels and not a brain tumour. And what a pity that yet again this month she forgot to take the Bach flower remedies and the evening primrose oil and Gingko that are supposed to be great for the lunatic mood swings. Never mind, knowing that she is not actually going mad has put her in quite good form again.