After an invitation from an Achill Island sheep farmer, it seems Mrs 39 has got her appetite back

MRS 39 is still off the sex. The woman who hasn’t had sex for 39 years, cocooned for months. No one knows her exact age. Is she under 70 and free to leave the house? Or is Mrs 39 over 70 and confined to home?

Mrs 39 married into Listowel, so the usual back source of checking out who she went to school with could not be accessed.

The way it is in small places is the inquisitive people would never ask you for the information they require. There’s much more fun to be had in finding out.

If you add in the enforced celibacy of the last few months, the sum total of her doing without was now 39 and a quarter years.

The editor here gently suggested Mrs 39’s voluntary abstinence might even run in to over four decades by now. And was it time to make a correction. Could she be 41 and a half, or 40 and three-quarters, or even 42? Very possibly.

But Mrs 39 is an international label like Coca-Cola or Guinness. So why then would I change what is a worldwide brand? Millions of men crave Mrs 39 and follow her every thought and deed in this paper.

Mrs 39 is still very much in demand.

Only the other day I had a communication from an Achill Island sheep farmer who enquired about a possible meeting with Mrs 39 when touching is allowed again.

“I’m getting terrible worried, Billy. I’d swear I saw a sheep winking at me.”

All I can do is pass on the message.

The last time I told Mrs 39 about a date application, she said: “I’d rather eat a feed of the pangolin fried rice from a restaurant out in Wuhan.”

Mrs 39 has become increasingly bitter in recent times. She has even turned against Marty Whelan because her scratch card wasn’t plucked out of the drum on ‘Spin the Wheel’.

Mrs 39 had a crush on Marty but in a very platonic way. “I’d love to wax his moustache,” she said playfully.

For those of you not from these parts, ‘Spin the Wheel’ is a game show where there are no hard questions and everyone wins. It’s a bit like the Covid-19 payments.

There is another worrying development that could have catastrophic consequences for all men when the distancing and travel restrictions are lifted. Mrs 39 has become an icon for an extreme form of feminism known as Dowithouts.

But first, here’s a brief recap as to why Mrs 39 is the way she is.

Her late husband, who might be still alive, left her many years ago for a younger woman. Mrs 39 is understandably bitter and has refrained from sex ever since.

I had also better explain why her late husband may be still alive. Mrs 39 and others, including me, have been told of possible sightings over the years.

The latest was when a man with the same colour eyes as Mrs 39’s ex was seen peering out over the top of a face mask at a Donald Trump rally in a place where they eat roadkill for Thanksgiving dinner. I told Mrs 39 of the possible identification.

“It could be him,” she said. “It would be just like that man to do me out of my widow’s pension, the only present he ever gave me.”

Mrs 39 is over on the other side of William Street.

I have to wait until the sixth food truck in as many seconds passes by. The huge lorry is full of flour and bananas. Men everywhere are trying to take their minds off the sex by baking banana bread.

I shout back: “What colour eyes did he have, the ex that is?

Mrs 39 waits for three artics loaded with gloss and emulsion to make their way up the town to O’Connell’s Decor.

“His eyes are bloodshot blue,” shouts out Mrs 39. “You’d have to nail down the hand sanitiser if that man was in the house. He’d be doing Dettol shots with Trump if he got his way.”

But back to the Dowithouts. These women will finish off men forever.

The movement is agitating that all women who are away from their men should abstain from sex after the pandemic passes. Mrs 39 is their heroine and the Dowithouts have been radicalised by men who wronged them.

Men are demented: “What will we do at all, Billy, about the bit of sex?”

There’s bound to be a world shortage of bananas at this rate of baking. The monkeys are falling off the trees with the hunger, and the rooms in the house are narrowing every day, what with all the coats of paint. There will come a time soon enough when we won’t be able to pass each other out in the sitting room.

Mrs 39 pulls down the tea cosy she uses as a face mask. Another convoy passes by before it is safe to cross over.

We are two metres apart, which is about the length of Dáithí Ó Sé if he was put lying down.

“What about the sheep farmer from Achill?” I ask.

Mrs 39 perks up. “You never told me he kept sheep.”

She twirls around the tea cosy and her face goes in to a smile as wide as the Shannon estuary.

Mrs 39 speaks in a soft, silky voice. “I don’t think it’s fair all men should suffer because of the actions of one. And do you know it’s not just the men who are frustrated. Women like the bit of carry-on as well. How many sheep has that man from Achill? I’m partial to a bit of spring lamb myself.”

Could this be the end of abstinence? Is celibacy over for Mrs 39? Has lockdown opened the door to nearly 40 years of repressed sexual longing?

“Ah,” says Mrs 39, “but it’s a full year since I had the bit of spring lamb.” Mrs 39 cackles and licks her lips slowly from left to right, and back again.

“Have they mint sauce in Mayo?” “They do,” I reply. “Perfect,” says she, “and I hear the new spuds on Achill are a feed in themselves what with the sandy soil, and the carrots, I’m told, are as sweet as Granny Smiths.”

There’s bound to be a world shortage of bananas at this rate of baking. Monkeys are falling off the trees with hunger, and rooms in the house are narrowing every day with all the coats of paint