Page 250 - Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen FIELDING

It was headlined, with subtle-as-a-Frankie-Howerd-sexual-innuendo-style irony:

'The Joy of Single Life.'

'They're young, ambitious and rich but their lives hide an aching loneliness . . .
When they leave work a gaping emotional hole opens up before them . . . Lonely
style-obsessed individuals seek consolation in packeted comfort food of the kind

their mother might have made.'

Huh. Bloody nerve. How does Mrs. Smug Married-at-twenty-two think she
knows, thank you very much? I'm going to write an article based on 'dozens of
conversations' with Smug Marrieds: 'When they leave work, they always burst
into tears because, though exhausted, they have to peel potatoes and put all the
washing in while their porky bloater husbands slump burping in front of the
football demanding plates of chips. On other nights they plop, wearing unstylish
pinnies, into big black holes after their husbands have rung to say they're

working late again, with the sound of creaking leatherware and sexy Singletons
tittering in the background.'

Met Sharon, Jude and Tom after work. Tom, too, was working on a furious

imaginary article about the Smug Marrieds' gaping emotional holes.

'Their influence affects everything from the kind of houses being built to the
kind of food that stocks the supermarket shelves,' Tom's appalled article was

going to rant. 'Everywhere we see Anne Summers shops catering to housewives
trying pathetically to simulate the thrilling sex enjoyed by Singletons and ever-
more exotic foodstuffs in Marks and Spencer for exhausted couples trying to
pretend they're in a lovely restaurant like the Singletons and don't have to do the
washing up.'

'I'm bloody sick of this arrogant hand-wringing about single life!' roared
Sharon.

'Yes, yes!' I said.

'You forgot the fuckwittage,' burped Jude. 'We always have fuckwittage.'