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have been invited to my parents' house for dinner. We all had a great evening and drank
way too much when the conversation turned to our bike ride. Someone mentioned the day
that we all met in Shrewsbury and then Ben and I reminisced about the hippy girl and the
bagofsweets.Atthispoint,mymumburstoutlaughingandthenquicklyputherhandover
her mouth.
'What's so funny?' I asked.
'Nothing. Just laughing about what fun we had that day,' she said.
'Why did you laugh when I mentioned the hippy girl?'
'Did I?'
'Yes. You did.'
'Oh, no reason.'
She laughed again and then bit down on her fist as though she had just put her foot in
something. Metaphorically, of course; my mum's carpet is very clean.
'Well, about that bag of sweets. I kind of gave it to the girl to give to you,' she said.
'You did what?' I said, not believing what I was hearing.
'Ibroughtallofthosechocolateswithmetogivetoyou,butwhenIheardhowseriously
you were taking 'the rules' I thought I would give it to somebody else to give to you.'
'When? How? I still don't understand.' I could feel an anger bubbling up inside of me.
'I saw her in the car park before we left and recognised her from the pub, so while you
wereallchatting Itoldherwhatyouweredoingandaskedifshecouldgiveyouthesweets
when we had left. Sorry, I thought you would appreciate it.'
'Ofcourseweappreciated it,butthat'sbecausewethoughtitwasfromarandom,good-
natured stranger, not my own mum,' I said, angrier than I had spoken to my mum since
being a teenager.
'I thought you would recognise the chocolates as being the same ones I normally buy?'
'What? Snickers? Yeah, mum, because you're the only person in the world who would
buy them?'
'They weren't Snickers. They were Racers - Aldi's own-brand Snickers.'
'Well you're not the only person in the world who shops at bloody Aldi, either.'
There was an uncomfortable silence around the room and some awkward noises from
Ben, who was caught between wanting to agree with me and not wanting to criticise my
mum.
I know her intentions were good, but I did feel that she had undermined everything we
were trying to achieve. She just laughed and said I was being dramatic, but if I had slipped
her some carbs during one of her freaky diets, or sneaked some sugar into her tea during
lent then I would be officially disowned within minutes. Mums don't always know best.
So there you have it. We failed. The whole challenge completely corrupted by an inno-
cent bag of sweets provided by my own mum. I can assure you that until that moment on
Christmas Eve, neither Ben nor I had a single clue that our challenge had been tampered
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