My family home is like a ticking time-bomb

By Mairead Wilmot
THERE is an impending threat of mass murder in my family home which I was going to wax lyrical about, but I fear too much for my own safety.

Ah, what the hell.

A brief synopsis goes like this: the recession is ruining our previously lovely lives. Or, to be exact, it is ruining the lives of both my parents and my sister. Little brother is exempt because I’m not sure he even realises there is a recession – he’s too busy playing rugby, pretending to go to college and looking in the mirror.

Sister, on the other hand, is well and truly f**ked. She is now officially a statistic – overeducated and unemployed. This does not make for a jolly family environment.

Sister finished her degree in economics a while ago and, after much to-ing and fro-ing, decided that she was going to do a masters … in economics. Yes, it was a genius move really. In homage to the recession, she then opted to move back home to finish her thesis.

It seemed like the right thing to do. Everyone was quite OK with the idea – at first. There was a certain novelty factor involved for all parties – you know, a little bit like being on holiday, but not really.

Oh, how times have changed, my friends. She is now fully equipped with all the right letters after her name, and … no job. The house is akin to a ticking time bomb. Everyone is going to self-implode.

You couldn’t even cut the tension with a knife – you’d need to employ the services of an experienced logger wielding a chainsaw. After one particularly fraught incident involving mama, papa, sister, the dog and the car, she genuinely considered running away from home. I liken it to when you are about to break-up with someone and the way they smack their lips after eating

crisps, even the way they just breathe, is enough to make you want to leap over the couch and tear their eyeballs from the sockets, using your bare hands – that sort of thing.

Equally, I’m sure my parents want to sellotape her into a cardboard box and dump her over a cliff, hoping the tide will carry her towards the promised land of Amerikay. This is no more obvious than last week, when she had … a job interview. Understandably, the parentoes are more than anxious that sister finds some employment. After all, they have invested heavily in her education, and it is not exactly a reassuring investment return if she doesn’t have a job.

Like, I presume they are hoping that once they are elderly, we will repay the years of dedication they gave to us by putting them into a nice old-folks home. Realistically, though, sister is the

only one of their children who is in with a hope of actually being able to afford such a thing.

Brother will have spent all his cash on mirrors and plastic surgery to repair his ears from years of rugby abuse, and, hopefully, I’ll have spent all of my money on drugs, sex and rock ’n’ roll.

No, no … I’ll hopefully have spent my money on shoes.

Mother decided to become a religious zealot in the weeks leading up to the interview. Prayers were being said like they were going out of fashion. The fire brigade had set up camp outside the local church for fear it would go up in flames, thanks to all the candles being lit. Decades of the Rosary were being shouted from the rooftop with the help of a tannoy system, and Waterstones was sold out of those self-help books, like “how to be better than the best in your interview”, “how to come across as a confident, capable person”, or “how to sell yourself in a competitive market”.

I was totally supportive, of course. I attempted to explain to mother that the realities of a recession meant, in all likelihood, the last fast-food burger you ate was made by an engineer. Lead and balloon comes to mind. Unfortunately, there is no escape for either party – that’s another reality of the recession. I reminded mother that rather than being the exception sister was, in fact, the rule. Thousands of people were coming out of college or have lost their jobs and they are all looking into a state of nothingness. Lead and balloon springs to mind again. I have sympathy for both, of course, because no-one wants this situation …I’m just glad I don’t live at home, so I won’t have to be a witness in court when one of them eventually goes nuts with the bread-knife.