After giving birth to my fourth child, I went hungry while my mother-in-law raided my kitchen and ate my food. I was urged to “relax” by my husband, who was always defending her. However, I set up a trap that gave my husband and his mother a memorable lesson when she ate the one plate my son had spared for me.
My fourth kid was three months old, and I was barely making it between feedings on fumes and any leftovers I could find. I couldn’t afford to sleep, and a hot meal? By this time, that was almost a dream.
But what made it worse, do you want to know? My mother-in-law treats my kitchen as if it were her own buffet.
It began modestly. I dragged myself out of bed at the crack of dawn to make coffee a few weeks after I brought the baby home. All I need to get through the morning chaos is a small pot that can hold two cups.
I heard the front door open as I was nursing upstairs. Don’t knock. No “Hello, it’s me.” Wendy, my MIL, was the only one who let herself in as if she owned the home.
The coffee pot was empty when I arrived downstairs. I was storing some leftovers for lunch, and Wendy was at the refrigerator taking them out.
“Oh, that was delicious,” she chirped as she tucked the container under her arm and rinsed her mug. It was exactly what I needed in the morning. I stopped by to see how you were doing before work, but it looks like you’re doing well.”
I stood there looking at the empty kettle and my vanishing food, weary beyond description. “Wendy, that was my coffee. And those leftovers.”
“Oh sweetie, you can always make more.” She gave me a shoulder pat before gliding past me and heading for the door. “THANKS FOR THE FOOD!”
She was gone in an instant.
I assured myself that it would just happen once. We all make mistakes, don’t we? However, it continued to occur.
I would prepare my own lunch and put it in the refrigerator while I changed a diaper or put the infant to sleep. The issue was that Wendy could stop by whenever she wanted because she lived only two blocks away. She also did. She would be eating my supper when I returned twenty minutes later.
“I thought these were leftovers,” she shrugged.
My jaw was so tightened that I felt like my teeth could break. “They’re not leftovers if I just made them an hour ago,” I said.
“Well, you should label things better.” She dismissed it with a giggle, as if I were to blame for her inability to control her hands.
The worst thing? She never volunteered to hold the baby while I ate, showered, or just breathed for five minutes, nor did she assist with the infant. Before I could even call for assistance, she would saunter in, loot my kitchen, and vanish with my food.
When I finally lost it, I told Harry. “Your mom must quit consuming my meals. As it stands, I’m barely getting enough."
With little curiosity, he raised his head from his phone. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Have you heard me out? Your mother is the reason I’m going hungry.”
“I’ll speak with her, Bella,” he said. “Calm down.”
However, nothing altered. Wendy, if anything, became more confident. So the next time she appeared, I went up to her personally.
“Wendy, please refrain from stealing my food. Okay, if I offer. You can’t just steal stuff, though.”
She put a hand to her chest as if I had given her a slap. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize that bothered you so much.”
She was gone for a week or so. To be honest, I thought perhaps she had received the message. Perhaps we could get past this and I could eat in peace for once. A painful error.
Then the event with the pizza.
During the afternoon, I prepared four pizzas from scratch. One each for Harry and myself, one for Wendy, and one for each of the older children. She had texted that she would be stopping by. The infant was quite fussy and cried whenever I attempted to put her down after receiving her vaccinations that morning.
When I said, “Kids, dinner’s ready,” “While your pizza is still hot, grab it. They’re in the classic pizza boxes now! I have to settle the infant.”
As I carried the baby upstairs, bouncing her gently and doing everything I could to calm her, I heard them thundering down the stairs.
My newborn girl finally fell asleep in my arms 45 minutes later. With a growling tummy, I virtually sprinted downstairs after placing her in the crib and holding my breath until I was certain she was out, only to freeze. There was nothing in the pizza boxes.
I stood there, trembling. Then, from the living room, I heard laughter. Harry and Wendy were stretched out on the couch, filling their faces with the remains of the pizza when I strolled in.
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?” My voice broke. “YOU COULDN’T LEAVE ME A SINGLE SLICE?”
Harry laughed as he looked up, his mouth full. “Calm down, Bella. It was a sincere error.”
“A MISTAKE?” I had trembling hands. “Four pizzas were made. Four. I was meant to have one.”
Wendy used a tissue to gently clean her mouth. “Well, I didn’t see any names on them.”
“Because I identified which one belonged to each person! I actually said,” I paused and inhaled deeply. “Where are the kids’ pizzas?”
“They ate already,” Harry remarked, maintaining his casual demeanor as though nothing unusual had happened. “Slow down! You’re exaggerating the situation.”
At that moment, my thirteen-year-old son emerged from the doorway. “I put a plate on the counter for you, Mom. Have you located it?”
My heart fell. “What plate?”
“I kept three slices for you. Right there, place them on a dish.” He gestured toward a plate that was empty on the counter.
Wendy shrugged. “Aha, I mistook those for leftovers.”
My son apologized. I told him he did nothing wrong.
I turned to Wendy and Harry. “This is unacceptable.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Bella, that was a sincere error. Nobody was malicious. You are exaggerating a minor issue.”
Something broke inside of me.
Yes, except that your conceited mother always ends up eating or drinking my share of everything when she visits. However, why don’t we defend someone who is removing food from my mouth?
Wendy leaped to her feet. “How DARE you speak to me like that!”
“How could I? You have no right to enter my home, consume MY food, and then claim that I’m the issue.”
She snatched up her handbag and rushed to the door. “I don’t have to take this abuse!”
“Then don’t come back!” I called out to her. The walls trembled as the door crashed.
Harry gazed at me as if I had developed a second head. “What is wrong with you?”
“WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME?” Now, after three months of starvation, tiredness, and disrespect, I was trembling. “I recently had birth. I’m having trouble sleeping. While you sit there and laugh about it, your mother treats our kitchen like a free-for-all while I’m trying to keep four children alive and nourished.”
“You didn’t have to be so harsh.”
“Get out,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Get. Out. Of. My. Sight.”
He went out.
As I stood there in my kitchen, surrounded by empty pizza boxes, I vowed to myself that this would change, somehow.
I went to the store the following morning. I purchased a few inexpensive cameras and a bundle of vivid, neon-colored labels. Just enough to catch individuals in the act, nothing too fancy.
I prepared the week’s meals when I arrived home and fashioned lunchboxes for everyone, writing their names in large letters that could be read from space. Literally.
The children received their favorite meals. I produced something respectable for myself. What about the boxes of Harry and Wendy? They were totally deserted.
I set up a camera in the kitchen and another that was aimed at the refrigerator. I waited after that.
Harry scowled at his empty container as he opened the refrigerator that night. “Where’s my dinner?”
I folded laundry without even looking up. “Harry, you’re not a kid. You are able to prepare meals for yourself. Or perhaps when Mommy visits, she can prepare something for you.”
His face flushed. “This is ridiculous.”
“Is it? I find it absurd that a mature man is unable to confront his mother when she is practically stealing food from his wife’s mouth.”
He ordered takeout and slammed the refrigerator.
Wendy would eventually appear, I knew. She was unable to resist, particularly after being “disrespected.”
She did indeed let herself in the following afternoon while I was upstairs with the infant. She went directly to the refrigerator, and I watched from the top of the stairs.
Her face flushed as soon as she saw the containers with labels. She yelled, “This is RIDICULOUS!” to no one in particular. “Labeling food as if I were a robber! How dare she treat her family in such a way?”
Then she did just what I had anticipated. Taking the container bearing MY name, she carried it over to the table. She opened it and began to eat.
She was unaware that I had added a special touch to that specific dinner. The spices were just right. It had a wonderful flavor. Additionally, I had added a little something extra. I had added a moderate laxative from the drugstore as a garnish. Nothing harmful. Enough to make her second-guess her decisions.
About ten minutes into my MIL’s feast, I came downstairs.
“Oh, Wendy. My lunch is being eaten by you.”
She wiped her lips. “It was merely seated. I figured…”
“You made a mistake in your assumption. My name was on that one. Actually, quite evident.”
She dismissed me with a wave. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”
She was rushing to the restroom for the third time 45 minutes later. Her face had turned green, pallid, and crimson. She shook her hands and grasped the chair when she eventually came out.
“I have no idea what you did. I feel ill,” she growled at me. “This isn’t over.”
She was about to go for work when Harry arrived.
“What’s wrong, Mom? You look terrible.”
“Ask your WIFE what she did to me!” Wendy almost bolted out the door.
Harry’s eyes widened as he faced me. “What did you do?”
I gave a charming smile. “I took no action. Perhaps this wouldn’t occur if you both respected boundaries.”
I wasn’t finished yet, though.
I posted the video on my Facebook page that night while Harry was out getting the kids from practice. It’s just a plain video of Wendy opening the refrigerator, looking at the labels, becoming irate, and then purposefully stealing the container with my name.
I wrote as the caption: “Have you ever wondered what happens if you urge someone to stop stealing your food and they still do it? This is my mother-in-law consuming the piece that bears my name. People, boundaries. They are important.”
In an hour, I received fifty comments:
“Good for you, Bella!”
“I would’ve done SO much worse.”
“Your MIL needs to learn some respect.”
“What makes her believe she can simply steal your food? Is she alright?”
“It was inevitable for her,” my best pal wrote in a private message. “This is ideal.”
Even my mother said, “Someone taught her a lesson. My dear, you’re too tolerant.”
The video was circulated. Additionally, Wendy began receiving messages from people we both knew by the next morning:
“I watched the video. Wendy, that’s not cool.”
“Maybe respect your DIL’s food?”
Hysterical, she called Harry. From the other side of the room, I could hear her scream over the phone.
Harry turned to face me after hanging up. “She wants an apology.”
“For what?”
“For making fun of her on the internet! For contaminating her food!”
I put down my coffee, which, for once, I had managed to drink. “She wasn’t poisoned by me. She stole my food, which contained a little laxative that I had given her. Poisoning is not what that is. That’s the result.”
“You can’t just…”
“I can, indeed. In my home. With my meal. My name was on that. Harry, what did you expect me to do? Continue to let her walk all over me? Both of you lack the courtesy to respect basic boundaries, so why not continue to go hungry?”
He had nothing to say, for once.
“Since the baby was born, your mother has never volunteered to help. Not once. She has merely come to consume my food before departing. How about you? Each and every time, you stood up for her. I did indeed teach you both a lesson. Perhaps you’ll reconsider stealing something that isn’t yours now.”
Two weeks have passed.
Since the incident, Wendy has not “helped herself” to a single bite. She has only ever visited once, and she knocked before entering. Before entering, she ate the goodies she had brought in her car.
Harry? Let’s just say that, for the first time in years, he has learned how to boil pasta. Now he can even cook a good grilled cheese. Indeed, miracles do occur.
My children have eaten. My food is my food. Furthermore, nobody now touches anything that isn’t theirs.
You know what all of this taught me?
People may not fully comprehend limits until they are subjected to repercussions for transgressing them. You can be polite, explain, or make a plea. But for some, the lesson won’t be learned until it comes back to haunt them.
Was I unkind? Perhaps.
Was I mistaken? Not even by a small amount.
The problem is that you cannot continuously burn yourself to keep others warm. You will eventually burn out. I was already reduced to ashes.
Therefore, keep in mind that you have the right to defend yourself if you’re out there with someone who keeps taking while you give and give. You have the right to establish limits. And it’s quite acceptable for you to defend them — even if it means enhancing your lunch with a little extra.
Karma is said to be best enjoyed cold. However, in my home? It has a very obvious label that reads, “MINE.” It comes with a side order of stomach cramps.
And truthfully? There is no other way I would have it.
