** This article is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as shared with me by a friend who experienced them firsthand; used with permission.
When I was in high school, I had a friend that had very overbearing parents. One day my friend came to school and told me she’d had it; her mother had snooped through her diary for the last time. I asked her what had happened.
My friend shared with me that her mother was always reading her diary and then asking her seemingly innocent questions that related to what was in her diary. So she decided to write a fake diary and see what happened.
She set things up well. Taking to the pages of her diary, she wrote some things out that she knew her mother would come running to her with questions about. She wrote how she was planning to run away and perhaps pregnant.
Sure enough, the next day after school, when my friend and I arrived at her house, her mother sent me home to “talk” to my friend. I went home, and what happened next wasn’t pretty. My friend's mother first scolded her severely for having a boyfriend and being pregnant. Then she told her that she had called the boy's parents, and they, along with the boy, were on their way over, and her father was on his way home from work.
As the various people arrived, my friend managed to whisper to her boyfriend that she’d clear him of all wrongdoing as soon as her father arrived. When her father arrived, her mother brought out her fake diary and read the pages to everyone in the room.
My friend held her tongue until her mother finished. At this time, as every eye was upon her, my friend pulled her real diary out of her backpack and, in front of everyone, told them that she knew her mother had been spying on her and had had enough.
She told them that it was a fake diary and that she wanted to expose that she knew her mother had been spying on her. My friend then told her mother that she felt it invasive that she spied on her and was always going through her things.
My friend was an excellent student and never did drugs or drank alcohol. She never even kissed her boyfriend until they were officially engaged. On one hand, I agreed with my friend that her mother had gone overboard, but, by the same token, I think my friend may have also let things go too far in waiting for everyone to arrive before she told her mother the truth.
As far as I know, her mother never read her diary again. I felt sorry for her mother embarrassing herself in front of the parents of her boyfriend, though. What would you have done? Has someone ever spied on you and led you to do something so drastic?
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