MOST OF THE schools in the country are closed this week for mid-term break, so the kids – the jammy little beggars – are watching TV and collecting whatever they can lay their hands on for a bonfire.

We’re feeling a little bit hard done by, so we’re considering putting together a petition for an adult mid-term.

Here’s why we deserve one:

1. The fear

When we were kids we got the fear when Where in the World ended and Glenroe began and we knew we didn’t have our homework done and our mothers were forcing us into pyjamas. As adults, that fear is just as powerful, but add in a potential hangover and a scary Monday morning meeting and Downton Abbey takes on the same sinister powers as Miley and co. Wouldn’t it be lovely to go to bed on a Sunday night and know you and everyone else had a whole week off to laze around?

The Fear (Shutterstock)

2. The traffic

You know how much easier it is to move around when the little darlings aren’t being dropped off at 9am and picked up at 3pm? Imagine nobody had to go to work for a week? Imagine the bliss on the roads if you did have to go somewhere? And before you say “sure don’t we have that at Christmas”, all sales and frantic shopping would be banned during adult mid-term. Only leisurely purchasing would be allowed.

(Photocall Ireland)

3. The giving out about teachers

“Oh sure that lot have it easy… three months off in the summer and all the holidays during the year”. The adult mid-term would surely take away some of the sour grapes aimed at teachers, wouldn’t it? And, (playing devil’s advocate here) if the adult mid-term was at a different time to the kids’ mid-term, that would make things even sweeter, because the teachers would have to go to work*.

*Not sure how that would fit in with the no traffic plan, or the fact that someone would have to bring the sproglets to school, but let’s just go with it for the moment, shall we?

4. The lazing around

There should be a rule that the adult mid-term break should not come with any pressure to head off on any exciting or exotic mini-breaks, or spend every day taking in culture at a variety of museums and stately home. That stuff should all be optional, while at least an hour of Jeremy Kyle, Oprah repeats or vintage A Country Practice/The Flying Doctors is required every day.

Wrap us in your loving telly embrace Oprah (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)

5. The morale boost

Everyone would be in GREAT form. Until the following Sunday night of course. Then The Fear would grow exponentially from about 2pm onwards.

Hmm, maybe we haven’t really thought this through.

Here’s a dog wearing a cone of shame as a Halloween costume to cheer you up:

(Imgur via Reddit)

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