Oh, What A Tangled Web We Weave.......

Spend day helping Connie with job applications. She's decided she'd be better off in a call-centre job as she wouldn't be able to actually see people with thin hair and poking-out ears over the phone. I'm quite surprised by the hourly rate offered for some of them - it's almost as much as Max gets since the two pay cuts he's had to accept this last year. I often wonder if we wouldn't be financially better-off if we separated. All my single parent friends manage a holiday at least once a year - I don't know how they do it. I suggest Josh might want to try and get a Saturday job so he could help out with the family finances a bit. His answer is, "Why would I want to do that? I'm busy at weekends."


In the evening Dinah phones.

"Dad has got a new woman, the bastard," she says.

"Why?" I ask.

"I phoned him on his mobile at lunchtime - suddenly remembered I'd forgotten Father's Day - but he sounded a bit flustered and didn't try and guilt-trip me."

"Unusual, I grant you, but what's your point?" I want to finish waxing my upper lip and am a bit worried the strip won't come off if Dinah doesn't hurry up.

Well, he said he was in the pub having lunch with Cousin Mike, so I said 'Put Mike on, then, so I can say hello' - and Dad says 'Mike's in the loo'!"

"Still clear as mud," I say, but Dinah says,

"Shut up, Molly! You don't know what you're talking about. Just stop interrupting and listen for a minute!"

Unreasonableness runs in the family, but no-one ever manages to interrupt Dinah. She lacks self-awareness. Despite my loud sigh of exasperation, she carries on,

"So I get off the phone to Dad and then phone the number you gave me for Cousin Mike's house and - "

"Oh God," I say, and Dinah shrieks,

"Mike answers!"

Sometimes Dinah is so tiring. Now she's not speaking to me because she wants me to phone Cousin Mike and ask to speak to Dad, and I just can't be bothered. We'll know eventually if we're going to get Stepmother Mark IV. The whole family has to attend Dad's weddings - the most recent one was when I last saw Cousin Mike, come to think of it.


Max thinks the whole thing's funny - but Josh surprises me. He's disgusted by his Grandad's carryings-on. Maybe I should ask him what he thinks about Max and the hotel business? Parents can't do that, though, can they? Their relationships are supposed to be rock-solid and entirely platonic, so I'd either just worry Josh or make him squirm with revulsion. Anyway, now I've got to go and try to get that bloody wax off somehow, before Max spots it.