A Daily Mail freelancer is being kept under 24-hour suicide surveillance in case she decides she can no longer live with the ignominious humiliation of unemployment in her thoroughly middle-class family, especially after revealing her disgrace to 2,000,000 tutting readers.
“We were once a typical Daily Mail family – comfortable, bit dim, not super-rich,” sobbed ‘Jane Simmonds’
[all names have been changed so the neighbours won’t catch on - shame about the photo] in a heartrending description of the unending squalor of unemployment in the stockbroker belt. “Skiing in February, a nice hotel in Italy or Spain in the summer, just the one Freelander because my useless, freeloading husband can squeeze into my old Micra and bloody well like it until he starts paying his way. Just the bare essentials.”
 |
| A DFS sofa - this is the real tragedy of unemployment |
Jane’s modest lifestyle suddenly came crashing down around her ears, however, on the fateful day her idiot husband’s bosses decided they might actually get some work done if it wasn’t for him zealously clogging up their inboxes with an endless torrent of meaningless strategic-management bollocks.
“Since Andy was made redundant four years ago now, our income has plummeted,” she moaned, as millions of already-tight sphincters clenched in horror. “No more bijou little boutique visits any more - we just have to slum it in off-the-peg tat from M&S - and Emily, Jack and Lucy have had to learn not to hurl the Wii at the telly every time they lose a game, because hardworking mummy can only afford one replacement Wii or TV a month now.”
The final indignity, however, came when her stupid, proletarian parents tactlessly gave her a cheque to help with the cost of the children’s riding and tennis lessons. “I thought about tearing it up, but they’re so shockingly working-class in their habits that they actually check their statements every month,” she shuddered. “When I handed that cheque over to a spiteful little grinning bank monkey, I burst into floods of tears. It was like being raped, I tell you, just like being raped.”
“Why won’t somebody give my useless husband Andy a job?” she wailed. “He’s got a History degree from Cambridge and one of those MBA things, you know, so he really is super-employable. He’s willing to do absolutely any job I can bear to admit to the appalling snobs next door, although maybe his forte isn’t in personnel management. Since he’s been at home to supervise the cleaner, I swear I’m finding more dust on top of the wardrobe, even though she always pretends to look so hot and flustered whenever I get home a bit early.”
