My typist abandoned me today to take the kids to an indoor play area, a filthy, sweltering sauna (she complained) that could prompt any sound atheist to conceive of purgatory as being fully possible.

The smell at the play area? Deep-fried things, not necessarily food.

The patrons? The sub-70-IQ ass-crack parade, a truck ride away from Walmart. Big hair, small vocabulary.

Their progeny? The apparent hope of our planet.

If my mum sounds like a miserable snob and potential eugenics proponent, consider that she, with her crap finances, losing snakes-and-ladders game of a career, thrashingly desperate parenting, inability to vacuum, and impending 43^rd birthday, is experiencing a post-New Year’s letdown.

I can relate. Our house is officially dry—if you ignore the Malibu dregs and worm-inhabited mescale my parents insist could poison us. A blue bin of empties (which my mum forgot to put out for the collection truck) attests to the fact that we are…bereft of alcohol.

No wonder my mum is being such a drag. If she’s a fraction of the alcoholic I am, she must be suffering. My dad too—he’s watched, like, a hundred episodes of Monk.

I tried to cheer them up by reminding them about the Brazilian rum sample headed our way.

Me: Make sure you’re home for the Cachaca delivery.

Mum: The what?

Me: C-A-C-H-A-C-A. Tropical rum. UPS. You’re welcome.

Mum: Excuse me?

Me: So you have to be home for that. And the painting. We need a frame for that too.

Mum: Why don’t you answer the door?

Me: I’m a bear. Bears are scary. The UPS driver will freak.

Mum: I’m out tomorrow, sorry, buddy.

Me: NO! You have to be home! I need that Cachaca!

Mum: You’ll live. They’ll put a sticker on the door and we’ll get it later.

Me: Noooooooo!!!!!

Mum: I doubt it’s coming anyway. Seriously, who would send you alcohol?

OMG, my parents are so harsh.