Before I was recently became the Working Class Hero, I was the Jobless Jenny. I was basically bumming around at home, where I can get everything free of charge, where I can strut confidently to the fridge and i know that there will be Cheddar Cheese and Ruffles chips inside, primed for consumption. Now you will surely wonder: “Hello? You’re a 16-year-old on vacation. Why not hang out with friends and keep yourself busy?” And I will answer you with: “Because it is difficult to ask my mother for $20 on every alternate day, now that I am an absolutely shameless freeloader who does absolutely nothing at home.”
Well I do my fair share of housework and cleaning, but my sense of self-worth and dignity doesn’t permit me to badger my poor old lady for money to squander outside. thus, limited to twice-weekly hangouts with friends, i had to use my constrained budget very carefully.
And thus, with ample free time on other drowsy weekdays, I embarked on my Jobless Jenny routine, housewife-style.
After some minor sweeping and folding of clothes in the morning, I would eat breakfast. If was lucky I’d remember to brush my teeth. then it was computer time till afternoon. and afternoons meant this woman:
Before this period of unemployment I didn’t give a damn about this woman, only that she resembled my nosy neighbour, and that she was hustled off to jail, ala Paris Hilton. And that she had tons of money. Now as I was confined to my sofa set I had no choice but to watch the Martha Stewart show. It wasn’t that bad. It was basically about this Martha woman demonstrating her abilities as a housewife, Martha putting rugs here and there, Martha putting flowers here and there, and Martha cooking this and that. Martha also invited some celebrities to her show (most I didn’t know who they were). I’d like to thank her for making my lunches a little less dull: You see, I would be busy stuffing instant noodles into my mouth while watching Martha make some exotic pie, thus for a moment making me forget that I’d been eating the same noodles for the past few days.
after Martha left there was a slightly younger, less uptight version of her called Rachel Ray who would take over the TV screen. And similarly Rachel would invite celebrities over to her show, and this time I felt a little less alienated, because alot of them were has-beens like Rosie O’Donnell whom I remembered clearly for her Flintstones role. And well well: She hasn’t lost shape. Here she is:
To my utter disgust, I was secretly enjoying these cooking/lifestyle shows about middle aged women lecturing middle aged women on how to be housewives. It is interesting to note that none of these shows gave any attention to exercise; it was all about cooking food and eating food and yakking. No wonder housewives are (mostly) round along the edges.
A last highlight to my Housewife existence, which incidentally rendered me rather braindead, were the antics of the contestants on The Price Is Right. I enjoyed watching these hysterical people scream, cry and flail their arms in ecstasy as their names were called. Just look at silly human emotion on display:
Veddy nice. But alas; I’ve recently found gainful employment and that means adieu to all these silly people. I shall miss my stint as a braindead housewife though.
