Do you ever feel like you’re second-best? Like even as the protagonist of your own novel you’re Ron rather than Harry? Or more precisely, Professor Flitwick? You were useful for a shitty spell that was all the rage back in the day, but now the years have past you’re a side character that both figuratively and literally looks up to everyone else? For me, there is only one person that seems to highlight my shortcomings. My brother, Matt. He’s three years older and an inch taller, and just so happens to be my parents’ golden egg. I know every child thinks this toward their sibling at one point or another, but in this case I can promise you that my plea is true. It’s always been the case and I fear it always will be. That is, if my plan, like everything else seems to, goes to shit. I first started to hatch my little scheme at my dad’s BBQ in June. We were gathered around eating sausages, not Matt of course, he’s too good to take part in the slaughtering of a pig, and I heard one comment from my mother that was the last straw. The truth is that I can’t even remember what it was about now, they’re too quick and common, but it kick-started my Bond villain mechanics and a plan was born. I don’t want to sound dramatic but I won’t hold you in suspense any longer. You’ve probably already guessed what it is. I’m going to make myself King Cock of my familial circle by ruining Matt’s life. And we’ll see how smug the twat’s face is when he sees me sail past him up the social approval ladder. The only fault in my plan is that I’m not a hundred percent sure how I’m going to actually ruin his life. I have the intention and have already practiced my victory dance for when the deed is done, but as for the actual act that will catapult him into the bin of losers, I’m drawing a blank. The first idea I had was ruining his working life. I have a pretty decent job myself in marketing, but Matt just had to take the biscuit when he ‘dedicated’ himself to a child cancer charity. Oh my mother was all tears and cuddles when he came home with that news. I remember us all meeting for our monthly game of monopoly and he announced his new vocation just as he landed on my three houses on Mayfair. Did he pay up the cash he owed me for squatting on my plastic property? Did he diddly. The game was abandoned for an arse kissing party at his self-less venture. ‘It’s a bit of a dark charity, isn’t it? Giving cancer to kids?’ My joke went down like a lumpy nine year-old. ‘No, they save children from that horrible disease,’ my mother protected. It’s not even like he’s doing it for free. Oh yeah, the charity helps pay for expensive treatments for vulnerable kids, but they also use a large chunk of the donations to keep my dickhead brother driving around in his Volvo. I thought about maybe visiting my brother as he did the rounds around the wards. He invited me along with him to visit the children in hospital while he made sure they were being looked after properly. I was going to go and wiggle a few of the tubes and blame him, but it was on a weekday so I had work. The next idea I had was to ruin his relationship. He got married last year to a reasonable enough looking brain surgeon. She’s alright but I suspect when she’s trying to upload a personality back into her patient’s heads, she offers up her own as a donation. My plan was to pop around to their house while he was out. Make a move and see what happened. I ordered a pizza for the two of us over a Ryan Gosling film, but ended up bursting into tears when Noah was left for another man. I was a bumbling mess and couldn’t pull it off as sexy. I even tried pushing him in front of traffic on our weekly walk, but it was a zebra crossing and the car stopped anyway. He just thought I was eager to have my medium dark roast with two sugars at the park cafe. I’ll be honest I have let this scheme overtake my life at this point. I’ve been delegating tasks at work, been off my food. I’ve even skipped the last two classes of musical theatre I signed up for to help overcome my confidence issues. I just can’t for the life of me work out how I’m going to get myself to finally be seen as his senior. In achievements, they already say I look older than him. It’s the stress of always being overlooked, I tell you. Anyway, if you have any ideas of how I can ruin the schmucks existence, I’m all ears. It doesn’t have to be anything physically dangerous but I wouldn’t be too upset if it killed him in the process. It just can’t be obvious it was me who caused it. That’s vital. That would make me look jealous and I am NOT jealous. Sorry, that was a long answer to your question. My week has been good, thank you, Doctor. I’ve been feeling a lot better.