Having a sticky-beak mother is a challenge. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, she’s always itching to get in among the action. Actually, it’s not even that she’s trying to get in on the action, it’s that she’s always mounting a hostile takeover of the action. She’s forever trying to live vicariously through me, trying to capture some long lost youth, not that she needs to try particularly hard, seeing as she spends most of the time acting like a teenager anyway.

Mum’s goes to one of the best dermatologists in Melbourne. I say that not because I’m trying to show you her redeeming qualities or anything, but simply because that obsessive drive towards success makes her very good at her job. Anyway, as one of the best dermatologists in Melbourne, she’s surrounded by a cloud of specialist experts in all kinds of abstract medical fields. That competitiveness also means that, whenever I try and rebel against her and think for myself, there’s some serious backlash. And occasionally, not very frequently but not rarely enough, that vindictive spirit and knowledge of people with bizarre medical problems meet together to form a weapon of mass social destruction.

This year, there’s this guy in my history class, and I won’t say his name because I don’t want to embarrass him anymore than I already have, but he’s really cute. I liked him. About a month before all this nonsense blew up in my face, I decided to tell mum to back the heck off with the meddling. Weeks later, in an attempt to mend our relationship, we had a particularly heart-to-heart conversation where I ended up telling her I like this boy at school. Last night she comes into my bedroom, grinning with glee, to tell me that this really cute guy has had gynecomastia surgery in Melbourne. Basically, his man breasts were so bad that he had to get them removed.

So now this super cute guy is ruined forever. Thanks mum.