Mrs Bennet the Airhead turns to Mr Google

Friday, September 19 08

Mrs Bennet was born bottom first, three and a half weeks early. By nature she was ahead of herself and at times this characteristic worked against her. Take today for example. Mr Bennet had kindly offered to buy some shopping on his way home to save his wife taking all five Miss Bennets, who inevitably all pointed to various items on shelves which definitely weren’t on the list. All Mrs Bennet had to do was write down the groceries and toiletries needed and email them to her husband. And this she did. Well she thought she had until a few minutes later, two emails arrived in her in-tray. The first was an email to herself from herself. Instead of sending the message to her friend she had sent it to Mrs Bennet. The second was more worrying. It was from a reporter from one of the local newspapers. Mrs Bennet had only gone and sent her shopping list to the paper instead of Mr Bennet!
“Calm down! I don’t think you intended this to be published!” read the reply. Mrs Bennet roared with laughter. She had been accused by her mother of being on another planet and this confirmed it. Only last week she had forgotten her parent’s 44th wedding anniversary. Mrs Bennet never forgot. Her head was so full of shifting, sorting, packing, moving, settling a four-year-old into school and day-to-day living with five children, one husband, soon to be joined by one or two builders, that she had no room for sense. It was just as well her head was fixed onto her body. Because being where she was right now, she would probably leave it in the strangest of places - most likely in the microwave or freezer. She used to be a fan of Worzel Gummidge, a country bumpkin scarecrow with a weird-looking wart on his face who came to life and sang ”you put a wer after W and a wer after O, a wer after R and away we go….” He used to unscrew his head and take it off.
“If I could take off my head right now, I’d put on Mr Bennet’s. It works better than mine. Or actually, come to think of it, Mr Google’s head would be fantastic,” decided Mrs Bennet.
Mr Google was highly intelligent, could speak hundreds of languages, answer every Trivial Pursuit question and was a mind of useful information. He was someone with whom Mrs Bennet kept good company when she wasn’t seeing Mr Latte. She couldn’t have them both. Mr Google wasn’t connected at the venue she met Mr Latte, so she had the best of both worlds. Mr Latte in the day; Mr Google late at night. He often kept her company into early morning, much to the dismay of Mr Bennet.
Mrs Bennet’s mind was wondering. That was the problem, it wondered a lot. She looked at the mug she was holding. At least her friends understood her. One mum friend had given her this mug – one she hadn’t broken - for her birthday. On it was a picture of a woman, book in one hand, cup in another, hanging upside down from a lamp post. The caption read: “I’m in my own world, it’s OK they know me here.”
Jannie, Mrs Bennet’s mother was quite right, her daughter was in her own world at the moment. But Mrs Bennet was happily oblivious. Her mind on overload, she was content with her new friend Mr Google. And hopefully if she spent enough time with him, she’d pick up a few intelligent tips and wouldn’t email shopping lists – or worse - to the wrong person.