I was so jealous of Marge but now I’ve moved on!
When I heard television’s most put-upon mum — lots of hair, lots of responsibility — is going to be snogging her best friend in this Sunday’s latest episode of The Simpsons, my first thought was: ‘Who can blame her?’
I have to admit there was a time in my life — it was a pretty miserable time — when I began to identify with Marge in a rather worryingly obsessive way.
It all started with the symbolic keyring present.
I’m not quite sure what the occasion was — it may have been Mother’s Day — but my two daughters gave me a Marge Simpson keyring and I began to reflect on the fact my life was a bit too similar to Marge’s at that time and it made me cry.
Like Marge, I had two older children and a baby.
And I wouldn’t want to point any fingers, but I’d swear one of my children at the time was modelling herself on a cross between Bart’s wild behaviour and Lisa’s overly mature attitude.
But the thing that really got me down wasn’t so much the similarity, it was the fact Marge seemed to be coping far better than I was at that time.
I remember looking at the keyring and realising I was jealous of Marge Simpson.
For a start, Marge was thinner than me.
I was post-baby, in my 40s and feeling lumpy.
On the plus side, I told myself, Marge only has one dress, horrible clumpy shoes and four digits.
But at least she seemed to have found her look.
It must take massive self-confidence to pull-off Marie Antoinette hair, in bright blue.
Secondly, I was jealous of Marge’s zen-like calm while her big fat slob of a husband created daily disaster.
Nothing fazed her. She just carried on in the face of it all, always getting a meal out and her family around the table every dinner time.
Admittedly, the meal always seemed to be junk food but I even began to think Marge had got that right.
There I was, getting all stressed and anxious about organic vegetables and five-a-day, and getting ratty at meal times when the children turned up their noses at my hard work.
And The Simpsons were happily chuntering through Shake ‘n’ Bake, whatever that is?
I can only remember Marge losing it once, when she suffered a near-nervous breakdown while driving and refused to get out of the car, bringing traffic to a halt for miles around.
But she went off to a health farm for a couple of days and all was well within the half-hour episode.
But mostly, at the time, I envied Marge for her relationship with Homer. Yes, he’s fat and bald, but Homer knows home is where the heart is.
He’s in touch with his emotions, he can talk to the kids about their problems, and he can’t wait to rush home at the end of the day for a cuddle with his wife.
And you’ve got to hand it to the guy, he knows how to say ’sorry’ better than anyone else in the world — admittedly, he’s had more practice than anyone else.
As The Simpsons moves into its 20th series, I’m pleased to say I’m no longer jealous of Marge. I’ve moved on.
Like Marge, I’ve had 20 years of bringing up children, but my baby grew into a wonderful little boy, whereas poor old Marge is still stuck with dummy-sucking Maggie — I’d be worried about Maggie not talking by now if I were Homer and Marge.
And while Bart and Lisa are great fun kids, they’re stuck forever in pre-adolescence.
That may mean Marge never has to face the real teenage challenges of motherhood, but it also means there’s still no light at the end of the tunnel for her.
My older two are at the jobs, university and driving test stage now.
And let’s face it. We all know that in real life Marge would either have walked out on Homer by now or he’d have died of some alcohol-obesity related disease.
And if nothing else, the sheer boredom of her routine would have killed anybody less saintly than Marge, who once said: ‘Now if you’ll excuse me I have some dust that needs busting.’
So when I heard that poor old Marge was about to seek solace in the arms of another woman, I wasn’t at all surprised.
But then again, when I read on and discovered that the long, lingering lesbian kiss turned out to be just another of Homer’s fantasies, I wasn’t surprised either.
As for the University Challenge student scandal, I care not a jot.
Winners Corpus Christi College were stripped of their title because of an ineligible team member.
But it’s only because the BBC now takes two years to film the series, and Sam Kay had graduated half-way through.
It’s hardly a fraud worthy of nationwide publicity.
HOSPITALS have had to ban alcohol-based hand gel from receptions… because people are making cocktails out of it. The gel is up to 70 per cent alcohol and is being stolen by the glassful and drunk with orange juice.
It’s no joke. Two homeless people died in London last year after drinking the gel and now the Royal Bournemouth Hospital has removed the hand-washing dispensers except on the wards where staff can make sure nobody’s topping up a tumbler.
Neil Manser, co-founder of National Concern for Healthcare Infections,
said: “We have heard many stories of people going along and putting it into their orange juice.
“Unfortunately, we have people in society who are addicted to alcohol.”
As I said, it’s a serious issue — but it does remind me of another alternative use I’ve heard about for the gel.
Three or four years ago, my middle daughter was ill in hospital and it was a week or so before we took her little brother in to visit. I think he’d just turned five.
As he was walking through reception, his dad led him over to the dispenser, and squeezed a big blob of the clear gel into the palm of his hand.
He looked up with a big smile, said: ‘Thanks, Dad!’ and with one swift movement, stroked the gel up through his fringe to create a nice quiff.
At that time lots of boys in his class had short, spiky hair and he’d seen his big sisters’ boyfriends carefully applying hair gel in front of the mirror.
He’d been asking me to buy him hair gel for ages and I’d been dodging the issue.
So when he was handed a big dollop of gel without any explanation, he assumed it was for fashion rather than medical purposes.
Unfortunately for him, it seemed that all eyes in Torbay Hospital’s crowded reception area were looking his way at the time… and, after a second or two of surprised silence, there was an outbreak of laughter.
Luckily, he was blissfully unaware he was the cause of the joke.