“Just keep quiet, accept my guests, and don’t make a fuss!” the mother-in-law told her daughter-in-law, bringing complete strangers into the apartment.
“What do you mean, it’s none of my business? I live here. This is my apartment too. So I’m telling you—no!” Nadia stood in the doorway like a wall, trying to prevent her mother-in-law and several unfamiliar people from entering her home.
“Oh, right, as if we forgot to ask your permission about who we should put up and where!” her surprisingly brazen mother-in-law, Anna Mikhailovna, snapped back. “Just keep quiet, welcome the guests, and don’t start making trouble. Look at you, causing a scene! Come in, Lenochka. You too, Venya. She’s only joking.”
With those words, the mother-in-law forced a fake smile, squeezed her way into an apartment that did not belong to her, and ushered an elderly married couple in behind her.
“No, this is completely beyond anything reasonable! What am I supposed to do, fight you?” Nadia exclaimed angrily.
“There’s no need to fight anyone. Why would you?” her husband’s mother replied, once again smiling unpleasantly and trying to turn everything into a joke. “If my dear son Dimochka were home right now, you wouldn’t dare say a word against our relatives. He’s hospitable and respects his family. You should learn from your husband, since you apparently have no manners yourself!”
Five minutes earlier, Anna Mikhailovna had called Nadia from downstairs. Standing outside the entrance to the building, she had asked her daughter-in-law over the intercom to let her in. Without suspecting anything, Nadia pressed the button and opened the door for her mother-in-law.
Though, truthfully, she could not understand what the woman was doing there while her son Dmitry was in the hospital after an attack of appendicitis. There was no friendship between the two women, not even a particularly cordial relationship.
When Nadia opened the door to her apartment, she was genuinely surprised. Standing beside her mother-in-law were a man and a woman Nadia had never seen before in her life. They were carrying large travel bags.
“Here, meet them, Nadezhda. This is my cousin Elena and her husband, Veniamin. They’ve come from Kozelsk to visit their relatives—which means me.”
“Hello,” the hostess replied rather coolly, unable to understand why they were standing outside her apartment with luggage. “What is this about?”
“I brought the guests to you. They’ll be staying here with you and Dmitry,” Anna Mikhailovna announced as though the matter had already been settled. “I would have put them up at my place, but you know I can’t. My old friend Isolda is staying there with her grandson right now. They came from Murom. So welcome the guests and stop being stubborn. Lena and Venya understood my situation and kindly agreed to stay with you.”
Nadia was bewildered. She still had no idea what she was supposed to do in such an awkward and bizarre situation. Should she immediately call the local police officer, or should she first phone her husband at the hospital and tell him about the outrage his mother had created here?
Meanwhile, the uninvited guests were already looking around Nadia’s apartment with interest and slowly beginning to unpack their bags.
“Oh, we like everything. It’s very cozy here. And quite spacious too—the apartment is large. Tell me, Nadia, how many square meters is it? And is the subway far from here? My husband and I are planning to go downtown tomorrow, walk around, admire the monuments and other sights,” Elena asked casually.
But before Nadezhda even had a chance to open her mouth and give the uninvited guest the kind of answer she deserved, the ever-present mother-in-law jumped in.
“No, the subway isn’t far. Everything is close by here. It’s a very nice, comfortable neighborhood. You can easily reach the subway in ten minutes at a relaxed walking pace. Lenochka, Pyotr and I helped our son choose this apartment. We thought of everything and planned it all out. A park nearby, the subway, shops, and a school,” Anna Mikhailovna declared proudly.
“Well done, Anechka! You’re an example to everyone else! You gave your son a good education and helped him buy such a luxurious apartment,” Elena continued speaking only to the mother-in-law, as though Nadia were not even standing there.
“That’s it. I’m calling Dmitry. This is unbelievable! What incredible nerve!” Nadezhda said indignantly. She had absolutely no desire to live with complete strangers. It was time to put an end to this.
“Oh yes, by the way! Please do call Dima. Let my dear son be happy that relatives he hasn’t seen in ages have come to visit you. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to see them. It’s such a shame Dimochka is ill right now and can’t properly welcome his aunt and uncle,” the mother-in-law continued shamelessly, looking reproachfully at her daughter-in-law.
Her husband’s mother and the guests continued chatting while Nadia actually dialed Dmitry’s number. He had undergone surgery the day before.
But no matter how many times she tried, her husband did not answer. He was probably asleep after all the medication and procedures.
So the situation, to put it mildly, was highly unusual.
In principle, it would not have been difficult for her to accommodate her husband’s relatives.
But only if the whole thing had happened differently.
The sheer arrogance with which her mother-in-law had barged into the apartment would have shocked anyone. She could have warned Nadia beforehand. She could have asked whether her daughter-in-law even had the possibility of hosting her guests.
Things should have been handled like normal human beings handle them—not by forcing your way in, humiliating and insulting Nadezhda in the process.
For some reason, the mother-in-law considered the young couple’s purchase of their own home entirely the achievement of herself and her husband.
But even that was a lie.
The apartment had been bought with a mortgage. And although Nadia and Dmitry had needed to borrow money from their parents for the down payment, it was worth noting that both sets of parents had contributed—not only Dmitry’s mother and father.
But the calculating Anna Mikhailovna preferred not to remember that, always presenting her own role in the purchase of the apartment as the most important one.
Besides, she had never liked her daughter-in-law. She believed her precious son could have found himself a better wife. She made no attempt to hide her dislike for Nadia, which was why she behaved the way she did.
She was convinced that her son’s young wife would never be capable of standing up to her properly.
Nadia was nervous, and she did not try to hide it.
She made another attempt to reach her husband, but his phone still answered only with long, unanswered rings. She did not continue insisting this time either. After all, her husband was in a hospital, not at a health resort.
“All right, then, I’ll leave you now. I need to get home. My house is full of guests too, and they need my attention. Make yourselves comfortable, rest, and feel at home. We’ll call each other tomorrow and arrange when to meet,” Anna Mikhailovna chirped sweetly.
Then she left, abandoning Nadia alone with complete strangers.
After thinking for a while, the hostess decided that she had no real choice—she would have to let them stay for the night.
Throwing them out of her own apartment would not have been difficult for Nadezhda, but she had absolutely no idea how her husband would react.
And she did not want to argue with Dima.
Especially now, while he was receiving treatment in the hospital.
“Don’t worry, Nadezhda, we’ve already had dinner. All we need is a place to sleep,” the uninvited guests told her.
Continued in the first comment 👇
At last, the long-awaited phone call came—it was her husband calling back to ask how his wife was doing.
“How am I doing? Terribly! This is a nightmare!” she told him, almost in tears, after stepping out onto the balcony and closing the door behind her so no one could hear. “Your mother has pulled another stunt!”
“What happened, Nadya? Please don’t scare me. I’m not feeling very well myself. I still haven’t fully recovered from the anesthesia,” her husband replied somewhat plaintively.
“She brought some distant relatives of hers to my place! People I’ve never seen in my life!”
“What do you mean, brought them? Did they come to visit you? And Mom came with them?” Dmitry asked.
“What visit?! Your mother dragged them here to live with us. Some cousin of hers and her husband who came from God-knows-where. They came to see her—your mother! And she dumped them on me so I could wait on them, entertain them, and make them comfortable. Can you believe it? I tried not to let them in, but your mother called me every name under the sun and brazenly moved her guests into our apartment. Then she went home.”
“Wait, Nadya, I don’t understand anything. My head’s still foggy. Mom brought Aunt Lena and Uncle Venya to you? She mentioned recently that they were planning to come visit us. But why did she bring them to your place?”
“That’s exactly what I’d like to know! Though something tells me the answer is obvious. She doesn’t want to bother dealing with guests herself. She’d have to cook for them, pay attention to them, clean up, serve them, entertain them. Better let the daughter-in-law do all that!”
“I’ll call Mom right now and tell her to take them back immediately. Of course you don’t need them there—they’re basically strangers to you,” Dmitry reassured his wife. “But it’s probably too late today. Let them spend one night at our place, and tomorrow they can go back to Mom’s. I’ll warn her not to make a scene.”
“To be honest, I don’t even want to leave them here overnight. Not at all. But fine, I’ll compromise. They are your relatives, after all,” Nadya reluctantly agreed.
When Nadezhda left for work the next morning, she told her husband’s relatives that they could simply pull the front door shut behind them when they left.
“Well, that’s something! Aren’t you going to give us keys?” the couple exclaimed in surprise.
“How are we supposed to get back inside? Are we supposed to sit outside the building until evening waiting for you to come home from work?”
“You won’t be coming back. Because you are not going to live here. So take all your things with you when you leave,” the owner of the apartment replied curtly and walked away, refusing to listen to any more complaints from the strange guests.
“What have you done now? Why didn’t you give Elena and Veniamin the keys? I already told you—they’re going to stay with you, and you’re arguing again?” her mother-in-law called immediately.
“No, you’re mistaken. And hasn’t your son called you yet?”
“He has! So what? I already told him everything. I explained very clearly that welcoming guests is your direct responsibility. Especially relatives. And you, my dear, stop making him nervous with your whims and demands. Let my son recover in peace! Nothing terrible will happen to you. You won’t break your back setting the table for my relatives and cleaning up after them.”
Without saying another word, Nadezhda hung up, secretly hoping that once her mother-in-law’s relatives left the apartment, they simply wouldn’t be able to get back in. And she certainly wasn’t going to open the door to just anyone a second time.
But when she returned home that evening, she could only gasp.
The guests were sitting at the table, which was covered with sliced sausage and cheese, smoked fish, and various other foods they had found in her refrigerator.
But the most outrageous thing was that these people were drinking alcohol in her kitchen.
And judging by their appearance, they had been doing so for far longer than an hour.
“Oh, Nadya’s home!” Elena exclaimed cheerfully in a drunken voice. “Come on, whip us up something quickly. We’ve been eating cold food all day. We want something hot now. I would have cooked myself, but Venya and I couldn’t figure out how to turn on your fancy modern stove. We pressed every button, but nothing worked.”
“Yes, thanks to you, we’ve been sitting here all day and didn’t go anywhere. We didn’t even get to see the city. You didn’t leave us any keys!” Veniamin complained reproachfully, barely managing to pronounce the words.
Nadezhda took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself.
Then she left the kitchen and called the police.
She reported that there were strangers in her apartment who refused to leave.
“Anna Mikhailovna, come and collect your drunken relatives immediately before they get taken to the police station!” she called her mother-in-law next. “If only you could see what they’ve done here, what they’ve turned my new kitchen into! It’s horrible! You already owe me for the half day I’m going to spend cleaning everything after them. And possibly for repairs too.”
“What nerve! You called the police? You want to have your own relatives thrown in jail?” Anna Mikhailovna exclaimed.
“Look who’s talking!” the daughter-in-law shot back, deciding she wasn’t going to let her get away with it. “Luckily for you, they advised me to call the local police officer first. But if you don’t take your shameless relatives away within thirty minutes, they’ll spend the night in a cell. I promise you that!”
When the apartment was finally cleared of strangers, Nadezhda breathed a sigh of relief for the first time in two days.
At that moment, she wanted only one thing—to forget as quickly as possible the looks and words her husband’s mother had hurled at her.
“Shameless! Ungrateful! We accepted you into our family, and you behave like the most selfish woman imaginable! Heartless and uncultured!” Anna Mikhailovna had shouted.
Once she was alone, Nadya began to think.
She decided she wasn’t going to let the matter end there.
She needed to get even with her mother-in-law properly.
In a way that the dishonest woman would remember for a very long time.
Then Nadya called her own mother.
“Mom, hi! How are you and Dad? Everything okay? I’m glad. Listen, give me the phone number of our relatives from the village of Vasyutkino.”
“Who? Kolya and Masha? Why do you need them? They probably still drink nonstop like always, gulping moonshine by the bucket. They don’t know how to drink any other way. What on earth are you planning to talk to them about?” her mother asked in surprise.
“That’s perfect, Mom! It’s absolutely wonderful that they like to drink by the bucket! I want to invite them to visit,” Nadya stunned her mother by saying.
Then she vividly told her everything that had happened with her mother-in-law and explained the plan she had come up with to teach her husband’s mother a lesson.
“Oh, sweetheart, maybe you shouldn’t?” her mother tried to dissuade her. “She’ll hold a grudge against you.”
“I have to, Mom. Otherwise this will never stop. People like that have to be taught a lesson.”
A week later, someone rang Anna Mikhailovna’s doorbell.
When she opened the door, she saw her daughter-in-law surrounded by several strange-looking people whose appearance and smell reminded her more of the homeless people who occasionally wandered around the garbage bins in the courtyard.
Or perhaps badly battered partisans who had just emerged from some remote forest.
“Hello, nice to meet you,” they said politely, while spreading the unmistakable smell of stale alcohol around them.
Gently moving aside her bewildered mother-in-law, Nadya invited her relatives into the apartment.
“Come in, don’t be shy. These are my relatives. They came from the village. They may be a little rough around the edges and not particularly cultured, but they’re hardworking people! Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, we love working,” they agreed in unison. “We’ve worked hard all our lives and never spared ourselves.”
“They’ll stay with you for two or three days.”
“What? Stay here? Have you completely lost your mind? Who did you bring into my home?” Anna Mikhailovna grimaced in disgust.
“What do you mean, who? Relatives. What’s wrong with that? I’m leaving on a business trip, and Dima is still in the hospital. So, using your own words: welcoming guests, especially relatives, is your direct responsibility. So there will be no refusals!”
Nadezhda left, entrusting her relatives to her mother-in-law’s care.
For the first fifteen minutes, Anna Mikhailovna called her cell phone nonstop.
Then the calls suddenly stopped.
“That’s it, they talked her around! Or got her drunk on moonshine. Judging by how full their bags were, they brought plenty of fuel with them,” Nadya said with satisfaction.
Of course, Nadya had explained the whole situation to her relatives from the village and had simply asked them to help her by playing along for a while.
“If things get really bad, don’t wait for the police. Just leave on your own,” she warned her aunt and uncle from Vasyutkino.
“Don’t worry, Nadya. We’ve dealt with tougher people than her. Nobody has ever managed to resist our homemade natural product! Everything will be just fine,” they laughed.
The next day, her husband called and told her that his mother was furious with Nadya.
She didn’t even want to speak to her anymore.
She had asked him to tell Nadya that she would never set foot in their apartment again.
“Wonderful! That’s exactly what I was trying to achieve. Maybe this will teach her a good lesson for the future.”
“I’ll make her respect me,” the woman thought with a smile.
And as for the relatives from the village, they managed to remain guests at her mother-in-law’s home for an entire twenty-four hours.
They certainly knew how to do their job perfectly.
