Wine and Beer Bottles Being Opened as Air-Raid Warning for Non-Parents

The sound of wine bottles being uncorked and beer cans cracking open could be heard across the country this weekend as parents celebrated the approaching return to school.

For parents, the noise marked the long-awaited return of routine, quiet houses and the possibility of completing a thought without being asked for a snack.

For everybody without children, it sounded more like an air-raid warning.

The celebrations signalled the imminent return of packed roads, endlessly stopping buses and an extra hour added to journeys that had been suspiciously pleasant for the past two months.

“I just can’t anymore. It’s been two months of non-stop questions and boredom. We really should have summer school.”

Another parent was even more enthusiastic about the educational opportunities ahead.

“Who wouldn’t celebrate it?” she said. “The little bollocks will have other people to watch him now.”

Commuters prepare for impact

The mood was less cheerful among commuters, many of whom have spent August enjoying journeys so efficient they briefly suspected Ireland had developed functioning transport infrastructure.

“I’m taking the day off. I’m calling in sick. I don’t care. It’s a shambles that the roads are this bad and that everybody has to drive their kids to school.”

Another commuter offered a more ambitious policy response: “Fuck them, like. Homeschooling for all, I say.”

Transport experts have advised non-parents to prepare by leaving home the previous evening, bringing emergency sandwiches and accepting that the bus in front of them will stop at every single stop regardless of whether anybody appears to be waiting.

As if on cue, the roads were jammed on the first morning back as motorists observed what some have dubbed National Road Rage Day.

The title may cause confusion with National Slow Down Day, a separate and considerably more responsible road-safety campaign which has previously coincided with the return to school.

Either way, motorists are expected to spend the morning travelling very slowly indeed.