First lines of classic novels if no-one had childcare

[cariadlet]

Here's a few to get us started.
lithub.com/first-lines-of-classic-novels-if-no-one-had-childcare/,

A Christmas Carol

Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. However, after a swift Google, mummy realised it is entirely possible that a hibernating hamster may appear to be dead. Oh dear, best not tell the children, she thought.

August is the cruellest month, breeding traffic from empty roads, stirring dull routes with are-we-nearly-there-yet’s.

Winter kept them quiet under a mound of Granny’s presents, feeding little lives with dried bananas and Terry’s chocolate orange.

(That’s a riff on TS Eliot, The Waste Land) 😂

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was going to do in New York, with the grand sum of $50 to get three kids through the six, long weeks of school vacation.

That was The bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he heard the kids shouting at him to wake up. Then he remembered that the missis was still on Deb's hen week and the childminder was on her holibobs. He wondered if it was too early for Vodka.

I'm pretty much f*cked.

(The Martian, needs no modification)

Granted: I'm an inmate in a mental institution; my keeper watches me, scarcely lets me out of sight, for there's a peep-hole in the door and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can't see through blue-eyed types like me...Perhaps if I slide a packet of Haribo under the door, I can stay longer in the bathroom.

The Tin Drum.

The Picture of Dorian Grey

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn, masking the smell of the diaper pail that hadn’t been emptied.

From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum. A shrill cry pierced the stillness, emanating from the kitchen. “Harry!”, his wife intoned, “you’d promised you’d be on kids while I finish the dishes! The baby keeps pulling plates out of the dishwasher. Where ARE you?!”

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,
Every creature was stirring, even the fucking class mouse.
The sticking were flung at the end of beds in the children's lair,
In hopes that Mother had read the list and a PlayStation would be found there…

. “Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy ...." oh James, your homework is to write a sentence showing how to use commas.

Crime and Punishment

On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge. The baby strapped to him in the carrier was sticky, fidgety, and entirely unimpressed with the mode of transportation offered to him on such a muggy day.

The man had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His garret was under the roof of a high, five-storied house and was more like a cupboard than a room, but such was the reality of the rental market while also saving up for daycare fees.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. Never leave a child alone with a tub of Sudocrem.

The Great Gatsby

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not, some people of course never do, -they take a sippy cup of juice or well-diluted squash-, the situation is in itself delightful. It is utterly delightful until the lid of the sippy cup which has not been screwed on properly, becomes loose and the beverage drenches the clothing, necessitating a dash away from the tea table. Minutes later, one returns to a tepid cup of tea, which has become the watery grave of a dying wasp, whereby the whole thing must be thrown out and started over.

The Portrait of a Lady.

This thread is ace.

Bridget Jones's Diary.

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS:

I WILL NOT
Drink more than fourteen alcohol units before the kids have gone to bed.
Smoke anywhere that the kids can find, lest I be subjected to a lecture from my 7 year old about the hypocrisy of adults.
Waste money on: pasta makers, ice cream machines or other culinary devices marketed as promoting family bonding but actually result in vile behaviour from both me and my kids and approx 3 hours of cleaning; books that I actually covet because I will only cry when they have their pages drawn on or ripped out to make papier mache; exotic underwear because I don't want to give DH the idea that I've got the energy for anything more athletic than changing the tv channel after herding feral kids for day.

Dracula

3 May. Bistritz - Left Munich at 8.35pm on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6.46 but the train was an hour late. I had felt pleased at securing seats for the late departure because it saved us a substantial sum, alas my wife disagreed, pointing out the recklessness of attempting to travel with three small children at such an hour without so much as a sleeper carriage.
Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. As my fairest child descended into uncontrolled sobbing due to her comfort blanket now steaming through Europe having been left on the train, and one wheel of the perambulator buckling on the cobbled street, I turned to my wife and exclaimed, with as much force as I could muster to her gentle face "damn the cost, my dear, next year we'll do Centre Parcs."

😀😀

😅Oh yes.

‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there,’ she sighed, as she scrolled through her camera roll looking at pictures of when holidays meant cocktails on the beach and sex in the afternoon, not sitting in a hotel bathroom with a bottle of wine so as not to wake the baby…

It was the day my grandmother exploded. I think providing free childcare for the summer holidays had gotten too much. ‘There’s only so much ‘Watch Our Show’ a woman in her fifties can take!’ she sobbed, as she locked herself in the under stairs cupboard with 20 Rothmans and a bottle of gin.

“Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
“I’m not sure, dear,” replied her mother, ‘but I don’t think you need to worry about violin practice for the rest of the summer holidays.”

The Pillars of the Earth

Prologue
1123

The small boys came early to the hanging.
It was still dark when the first three or four of them sidled out of the hovels, quiet as cats in their felt boots.

Suddenly the front door opened and their mother wearily shouted "how many times have I told you not to wear those outside? Wellies, boys, wellies....and take your sister's teddy down from that noose now."

1123...only another 8 hours until she could put them to bed.

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.
It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me.
"Max, for fuck's sake get your mates to move their bikes so I can get the bloody car in".

To begin at the beginning...
It is spring, moonless night in the small town
Starless and bible-black
The cobblestreets silent and the....
MUU-UM! I WANT A DRINK OF WATER

(I know Under Milk Wood is a play not a novel but as I had to learn the first bit of English O level I think it counts.)