I’m not sure what disturbs me most, that she’s been planning this for weeks or the evil glimmer in her eye as she detailed her cunning plot.

You see, Secondborn has been playing table tennis for years. She was the Under 17 State Champion in 1997. She loves the game. Trains for it like she’s training for the Olympics (except for the going to the pub afterwards. I don’t think there are too many elite training programs that include getting sozzled every Tuesday and Thursday evening… hehehe).

In table tennis circles, the very mention of her name strikes fear into the hearts of her opponents. That’s right folks, my girl is known — in ping pong circles, at any rate — by the terrifying moniker… Fluffy.

Fluffy’s been off her game for a few years now. Between university and work, she hasn’t played seriously for about 6 years. Now she is home, however, this is all set to change. Fluffy is already back in training.

Trouble is, Fluffy isn’t 17 anymore. She is now a lot smarter, and somewhat less enthusiastic about running herself ragged in 40’ heat, all in pursuit of a little white ball. And because the table tennis scene in Alice Springs is very small, there’s no separate Women’s league, she has to play in the Men’s competition.

All this has led her to devise an evil plan, designed to run her opponents into the ground, while she gets to stand there and just watch them fall. She has, apparently, been laying awake at night for weeks, plotting a way to perfect her strategy.

The plan goes something like this… when those large and aggressive male players smash balls toward her at about 200 mph, she’s going to tap it back to them as softly as a kitten, dropping the ball just over the net. She will then simply stand back and watch her opponents cause themselves grievous bodily harm as they break the land speed record trying to get to the table. This has the added bonus of probably castrating her opponents on the edge of the table in the process, diving to get to the ball in the mere second and a half they’ll have before it bounces again.

Seriously. She has worked this out down to that level of precision. The speed they’ll need to run at, the time between bounces, the distance they have to cover, the angle and amount of the top spin she’ll need and the thickness of the rubber she’ll have to put on her bat…

All this, just to win at a sport where they call her Fluffy?

She is truly her mother’s daughter.

Muwahahahaha....