Outnumbered by Darcys

Wednesday, January 14 09

The Darcys in the Dirt were breeding. There were now seven of them working on the house and to say Mrs Bennet felt surrounded was an understatement. The sub-contractor Darcys were now on site, wiring up and putting sockets in place and asking Mrs Bennet questions she wasn’t sure she was getting correct. She didn’t have a manual to consult, only a man, who didn’t know the answers either, so together they muddled through.
It was one of those days, when the hormones were raging, the head was pounding and the belly was aching and all she wanted to do was curl up in a black room and sleep. But there were sub-Darcys in her bedroom and nowhere to go. The little twin-Bennets were asleep so she couldn’t escape either. Instead she shut herself in the lounge and eventually fell asleep on the sofa – ignoring the comings and goings of sub-Darcys running up and down the stairs and the banging and drilling all around her.
For the first time in her life she was outnumbered by men. She was now having a taste of what Mr Bennet’s mum must have gone through bringing up five boys. She must have given up asking them to take their shoes off and not leaving the toilet seat up. Mrs Bennet didn’t really mind having so many men around. It was almost reassuring, but she longed to have her house back. But then again, she would miss her original Darcys, who only this morning had yet again helped her de-ice the Scooby Doo van, which just didn’t want to de-ice. It took at least 20 minutes – 20 minutes she didn’t have – to see through the windscreen. The scraper was in Mr Bennet’s car and a credit card wasn’t so efficient – especially when it came to scraping the large windscreen inside.
“Girls when it comes to have children, take my advice, only have two children! You’re car won’t be so big!” she declared, feeling more stressed as every minute passed. In the end she resorted to ringing the school and apologising in advance that the Miss Bennets would be late – better that than driving a car which had no visibility.
The Darcys in the Dirt were her heroes that morning. Their reward - a box of biscuits. They could breed as much as they liked, drink her coffee as much as they liked – so long as they rescued her now and then.