THE WAY I SEE it, I have six days of freedom remaining before my ankle gets re-clamped in the trap of corporate servitude. Well, five, if I don't count Christmas Day. Four, if I don't count Christmas Eve either because we always have a big Christmas Eve party, and I'll spend that entire day cooking, cleaning and trying not to drink all the mulled wine before the guests arrive. Three, if we don't count today which is already half over.

That means, in reality, I have two days of freedom left. 48 hours. Minus sleeping time, of course, so now we're down to, what, 30 hours?

I have 30 hours of freedom left.

That's barely more than a day! I feel my throat constrict and my underarms prickle with anxious sweat. What can I realistically get done in a day? I think of the hundreds of things I've been putting off, blithely believing I would one day get around to doing them because I was my own boss and every hour of every day was mine to use as I wished.

To organize my dread, I spend precious time typing up a to-do-before-life-goes-back-to-sucking list which includes everything from finally booking that pap smear I've been putting off to clearing out the kitchen junk drawer and getting the dog's teeth cleaned. Once I've compiled my long list (this takes almost a full hour <29!>)I print it off (another full hour because I have to change the printer's ink cartridge and that, you'll know if you've ever tried it, is a hellish, time-suck of a proposition <28!!>) and then tape it to the refrigerator door and attempt to prioritize the list into URGENT, SEMI-URGENT and LESS URGENT using some emoji stickers usually reserved for Tim's chore chart. Stars for urgent, barf faces for semi-urgent, smiley poop for less urgent.

Or should they be the other way around? Poop for urgent? Stars for less urgent?

Argh. Now I'll have to start all over!

As I stand in front of the fridge, trying to peel poop emoji stickers off my to-do chart, I realize the words on the page are all swimming together. My breath starts to skitter in my chest, and I recognize the onset of a classic "Sunday dreads" anxiety attack. The literal physical manifestation of my fear. The very thing I'd been running from when I quit that high-paying job five years ago and opened my own small-time neighbourhood coffee shop.

I glance nervously at the clock. I can't waste another precious hour of freedom having a panic attack. There's no time to waste on emotional incontinence, I chastise myself. I try to put Corporate Alice in charge of the situation, but even her no-nonsense pep-talk — suck it up buttercup, you can't lie down with dogs and not get a few fleas, time to take one for the team, hoorah! — can't stop the freight train sized freak out that's bearing down on me.

I'm not ready to go back to work.

The truth is, I'll never be ready.

This was a terrible idea.

I gasp for a steadying breath.

My phone pings and it's Joss, confirming I've received the travel itinerary from his private jet company. He reminds me to pack a bathing suit.

Ugh. Another attempt at a steadying breath.

Phone pings again. Eloise, the PR woman, reporting that both Wired and SPIN magazine have retweeted #pukeit #AliMac #CarvilFoods and that we are "totally breaking the internet."

Oh god. Steadying breath.

Phone pings again. Joss' gorgeous sister this time, Justine Carvil. She wonders if we could meet briefly before the retreat. Just to 'get to know each other' better. Maybe a working dinner?

Argh! You see? This is how it goes. You say yes to one intrusion on your personal time, and suddenly, your entire personal life is fair game. Even if there are only twenty... six!... hours of it left.

I gasp one last time before a pure black panic smothers me like a blanket over a curtain fire.

WHEN I REGAIN CONSCIOUSNESS, I find myself face up on the kitchen floor. My heart feels like it's vibrating until I realize it's only my phone whirring with an incoming FaceTime.

I lift it weakly, dreading who it might be and what they might want, but it's only my mother. Still flat on the floor, I poke the answer button.

"Alice, I'm a wreck! The most awful thing has happened and my life is completely OVER. Why are you on your kitchen floor? Good god, do you ever sweep? There's dog hair everywhere."

"Hello to you too, Mum." I pull myself up to a sitting position against the fridge so she can't judge my housekeeping. Discreetly, I rub my sleeve against some unidentifiable substance crusted on the stainless steel behind me. "I happen to be having a crisis of my own at the moment, so—"

"Oh, you're getting a million dollars and a trip to Italy. Poor baby. Unless you're about to tell me that you've somehow messed that up already, I promise you, my situation is much, much worse."

I point the screen up to the ceiling for a moment so she can't see me roll my eyes.

"Cabinets could use a wash, too. I'll help you with that the next time I'm over."

I close my eyes before they roll right out of my head, then bring the camera back to face me. Mum's perfectly made-up face looms too large in the screen. She has never figured out that you don't have to hold the phone right up to your nostrils in order to be heard.

"What's going on then," I ask, already sorry I did.

"Well! It's my column, Alice, you know, the one in Penthouse? It's called Ring-a-ding-ding: The life and loves of a 1960's Debutante—"

"Oh, okay, I didn't realize you'd settled on a title. That's—"

"That's not the problem, Alice. The problem is that the first instalment came out today — it's on the internet, you know, very modern, very au courant — but the picture they've chosen for my profile? It's... Oh my god, it's just awful. It's awful!"

I have an entirely unwelcome vision of my mother in a compromising position, possibly wearing sheer leopard print, which she's been coaxed into by a Penthouse staff photographer.

"I'm sure it's not that bad," I say, not meaning it. In fact, I'm sure it's every bit as bad as I'm imagining.

"Your father's in it."

What? Now that is weird. How did they get him to agree to pose for Penthouse?

"Sorry, I must've misheard you there. Did you say Dad's in the photo too?"

She nods. Or at least, her nostrils do.

"I did a whole photoshoot for those people. I wore my Love Shack boots! I looked amazing. But the editor says they decided to go in a different direction. That a current picture didn't match the "vintage sexy vibe" they were going for. So they chose an old photo of me from the 60s. It's the one with your Dad and I in..."

Ah. I know exactly which photo she's talking about.

At some point or another, every child realizes their parents actually had sex at least once or (nightmare) possibly still do. Some kids are unlucky enough to catch their parents at it. Others just put two and two together and make a solid deduction. Still others, like me, have it shoved in their face through the magic of Kodachrome. Photographic evidence of my parents in flagrante delicto has turned up in family photo albums, anniversary party speeches and, depending on the current temperature of my parent's marriage, sometimes right out on the mantelpiece over the years.

So, yes, I know the photo.

It has a slightly blue tinge despite the high saturation of the 1960s film colours — this is because, I imagine, the lighting was relatively low in the coat check booth where the picture was snapped. My (young, pre-marriage) parents are caught in the frame by some snap-happy friend who must've snuck up on them in the coat check at a wedding. They're both dressed to the nines. You can see my mother's long, slim leg, high heel dangling from her curled toes, her long arm around my father's back, and her young face frozen for eternity in a delighted "aren't we naughty" grin. She sees the camera, but my father doesn't, his face entirely buried in her cleavage.

It's the kind of picture that, if it belongs to someone else's parents, you think, Aw, that's so cute! but when it's your own, you can only think, Dear God, make it stop! because if you look very closely (and I advise you not to), you'll notice that his hand is ALL THE WAY up her dress.

Of course this is the photo Penthouse would have chosen to accompany my mother's erotic ramblings about sex in the heyday of women's lib and the precipice of free love.

As much as I don't personally want to see the photo again, I can understand the editorial decision.

So I say, "Oh, Mum, that's a great photo. You look amazing. It's frisky and fun."

"Of course I look amazing!" she jumps in. "I was 23! I was fizzed on champagne and in love with the most handsome man at the party!"

"Then, what? What's the problem?"

"How am I going to explain it to Hawaiian Shirt man? He's been looking forward to reading my column. We talk about it endlessly. He even gave me the idea for the first story. He's expecting a picture of me, as I am now, but, of course, better because they'd done my hair and makeup and everything. Oh! What a waste."

"So, you're really only mad that you didn't get an updated profile pic out of it."

"I'm mad that they've used that photo. I don't know if you remember, but I divorced your Dad. More than twenty years ago. Life moves on. I've moved on. I don't need my once-upon-a-time love haunting my very real, new life."

She makes a startlingly good, coherent point.

"I can see that," I say. "The past is the past."

"And the future is the future," she agrees. "Speaking of which, Alice, can I bring Hawaiian Shirt Guy to Christmas Eve?"

"Whoa... really? You don't even know his name yet and you want to bring him to a sacred family—"

"Oh my god, Alice, it's not sacred. You'd think I was suggesting I bring a Satanist to Midnight Mass. It's appetizers and drinks and some Bing Crosby. I want him to meet my family."

"So, you've met him then? In person?"

She shifts the phone so I can see her eyes momentarily, which dart around suspiciously.

"In a manner of speaking."

"In what manner?"

She sighs. Impatient with my prudishness again. "Basically. In my heart."

"So not in real life. You have NOT met this man in person yet. And you do NOT know his actual name. But you DO want to invite him to Christmas Eve where your GRANDCHILDREN will be?"

"I think it's a romantic way to meet for the first time."

I shake my head. The truth is, I'd almost rather she meet this conman in person in the safety of our home. It's going to be awkward and probably send my Dad into a tailspin on the holiest of nights — not that we're religious, I just hold mistletoe and Santa in high regard — but I think, on the whole, it's not a terrible idea.

"Fine," I say. "See you Saturday evening. Mum, I've got to go."

My phone has just pinged again with another message from Justine Carvil.

< I've made reservations for us at the King Edward Hotel restaurant Friday evening. Where we first met. ~xx J

Kiss kiss? I ponder my phone. Rich people are so weird.