This morning, Rita once again found her mother-in-law, Zinaida Kirillovna, in her apartment. As usual, she was rummaging through the refrigerator, sorting through the groceries Rita had bought the day before. It seemed that this impudence would never end.
“Is the sausage fresh, though? I can’t seem to find the expiration date. When did you buy it?” the mother-in-law said to her daughter-in-law who had just entered the kitchen, twirling a stick idly.
Not a word of greeting came from the mother-in-law—as always. At that moment, she held the sausage in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other.
“Don’t you know where to check for the expiration date? And the sour cream isn’t exactly fresh either. And the cheese smells a bit strange. Why do you buy such questionable products? After all, it’s all my Kostya who will be eating it!” the mother-in-law protested indignantly.
She had already rummaged through every pot, as was her habit, inspecting her daughter-in-law’s kitchen for any food that wasn’t fit to eat.
“Could you at least say hello first, Zinaida Kirillovna? You’re coming into someone else’s home, after all,” Rita said bitterly as she put the kettle on the stove.
“Someone else’s?!” the mother-in-law immediately snapped. “Just speak up and don’t get ahead of yourself! This is my mother’s apartment!”
“Yes, but legally the apartment now belongs to my husband. And yet you keep coming here as if it were your own home! What did you need from my refrigerator this time? Are you trying to live off someone else’s groceries?” Rita, who was thoroughly fed up with witnessing the same scene every morning in her kitchen, decided not to hold back.
At that moment, Kostya was on a two-day business trip. And in her husband’s absence, Rita was acting as she deemed appropriate in this situation. How long could she endure such rudeness?
The boundless love the mother-in-law had for her son—and her desire to control every aspect of his family life—were simply off the charts. It was time to put an end to it.
Rita had married Kostya six months ago. Immediately after the wedding, they moved into a newly renovated one-room apartment that Kostya had inherited from his grandmother. And everything would have been fine, even wonderful, if not for one fact.
Zinaida Kirillovna, who lived just a ten-minute walk away, simply couldn’t accept that her late mother’s apartment—where she had always considered herself the rightful mistress—now belonged to her son, who already had his own family.
Kostya had ignored his wife’s urgent requests to take the keys to their apartment from his mother.
“Rit, how much is she really in our way? She comes for five minutes and leaves. Let the keys stay with her. Who knows—what if we need to open the door urgently while we’re at work or away? And it would hurt her feelings if I told her not to come. Just think about it. It’s her mother’s apartment, after all,” Kostya was unyielding.
“Then let her come only when we call her, not at any time of the day or night,” Rita fumed. “Soon she’ll start peeking into our bedroom and controlling everything. Do you want that? I think that time is just around the corner,” she was beside herself with indignation.
Their discussions led nowhere, and the mother-in-law continued to drop by at any time she pleased. Although she wasn’t allowed to stay overnight, Rita suspected that might soon change.
“When does Kostya return from his business trip? This evening?” Zinaida Kirillovna inquired as she left.
“You know that better than I do,” Rita replied sharply. “If you’re done here, I’m going to have breakfast—I have to leave for work soon.”
“Have you thought about what you’ll cook for your husband for dinner? It should be something light yet nutritious. Soup, definitely. And maybe a second dish with fish, so he doesn’t overeat at night,” the mother-in-law said, feigning ignorance of how furious her daughter-in-law was.
“I’ll decide myself what to feed MY husband, understand?” Rita barely managed to hold back her urge to shout.
“What can you decide? Are you going to feed him with this sausage? I’ll come by in the evening to check what you’ve prepared,” Zinaida Kirillovna declared before leaving the apartment.
“No way! Stop mocking me!” Rita exclaimed as the door closed behind her mother-in-law.
Rita worked as an accountant at a housing management company. After lunch, she decided to ask for leave from work, citing poor health. The director scrutinized her pale face—which Rita had deliberately not tanned but instead powdered—and her now white lips (that usually glowed with bright red lipstick on the young employee’s face, and let her go home.
“Go get some rest, Margarita. You really don’t look well. You might infect us all.”
First thing, Rita decided to change the locks. After calling around a good dozen handymen from the ads, she finally found one who agreed to come immediately. The handyman fiddled with the locks for a long time and finally declared he was finished.
“Well, it’s done, mistress—take the work. It’ll work like clockwork! Even better!” the cheerful man exclaimed happily, having charged an exorbitantly high fee for his service.
“Wow! Why is it so expensive?” Rita protested. “You weren’t building a spaceship.”
“What did you expect? Nowadays, everyone is changing locks. I don’t know why—it’s probably either because people worry about their wealth or are trying to hide from troublesome relatives,” he winked at her. “And with the rush job, you ended up paying a high fee.”
“No matter,” Rita thought. “It’s worth it. Now, my mother-in-law will only come over when I want her to.”
When Kostya returned home, she decided to tell him that the lock had unexpectedly broken.
After the handyman left, Rita began searching for the phone number of the local police officer. She recalled having noted the number not long ago, just in case. Back then, a sheet of paper with essential tenants’ phone numbers had caught her eye on the building’s entrance door.
She found the officer’s number. That was it—now she could wait for the invasion. Rita prepared herself.
At exactly half past six, she heard her mother-in-law trying to insert her key into the lock. A minute later, there was a knock at the door. Rita understood that her main task now was to muster every bit of patience.
After prolonged and insistent knocking, Zinaida Kirillovna escalated her tactics. She began pounding on the door and shouting throughout the building, demanding that her daughter-in-law immediately open the door.
“What do you think you’re doing, you bitch! I know you’re in there—open up immediately! How dare you change the locks? Who gave you permission, you slut! What right did you have to change the locks in someone else’s apartment?”
The barrage of insults continued unabated. Rita dialed the officer’s number.
“Hello! This is Voronova Margarita from apartment 20 in building number 7. This is your jurisdiction, right? Well, my mother-in-law is now breaking into my apartment, demanding that I open the door for her. She’s already created a ruckus throughout the building. She’s making noise, shouting, and using foul language. I’m asking for your intervention because I’m feeling very unwell—I even left work early today. I do not intend to open the door for anyone. Officer, please explain to this person that by law she does not have the right to barge into her son’s—and my husband’s—residence. Moreover, she’s causing a public disturbance by hurling obscene insults at me throughout the building.”
After fifteen minutes, everything quieted down. Presumably, the officer had managed to calm Zinaida Kirillovna.
Then, half an hour later, a call came from her to the daughter-in-law’s cell phone.
“I will never forgive you for this! Do you think, you whore, that you’ve won? No! I will do everything to make my Kostik leave you. I will kick you out of our life with my son. Remember that!” she growled ominously into the phone.
“I’ve remembered. Now, for sure, you won’t come to our apartment again. I certainly didn’t need to have some poisoned tea from you as well,” Rita replied with a smile.
She managed to record the entire conversation on her phone’s voice recorder. Later, she would let her husband listen to it so that he wouldn’t harbor any illusions about his mother’s attitude towards his wife.
Kostya was surprised when Rita told him about the broken lock.
“There never seemed to have been any problems with it before. Why is your mom so upset? She called me, shouting about how you won’t let her into our apartment,” Kostya asked during dinner.
“Yes, I wasn’t feeling well. I even had to leave work. Perhaps the flu was coming on. And then there was the issue with the lock, which I had to resolve on my own. So I didn’t let her in, took a pill, and went to sleep. That’s what your mom said in retaliation.”
Rita then let her husband listen to the conversation with his mother.
“Well, do you like it? If you give your mother the keys to this apartment again, I will leave myself. I won’t even wait for Zinaida Kirillovna to try to kick me out of your life. So decide for yourself—it’s either me or her.”
Rita was resolute, and Kostya could see it. He realized that from now on, he would only interact with his mother on her own terms, and he never gave her a new set of keys. Since then, the mother-in-law has not set foot in their apartment.
In this way, Rita managed to drive her away from their home and taught her not to barge in uninvited at any time of day.
