“We’ll Book Everyone Through My Daughter-in-Law,” My Mother-in-Law Boasted. I Quickly Shut Down Her Family Travel Agency
“Sveta, should we already be arranging our medical certificates for the health resort? Raisa isn’t answering her phone, and we’re checking in two days from now. Has your HR department finally approved the list for our group?”
The voice of Lyudmila Semyonovna, an old friend of my mother-in-law’s, sounded focused and businesslike over the phone.
I froze in the middle of the living room. The phone was wedged between my shoulder and my ear as usual. In one hand, I held my husband’s shirt; in the other, a needle.
All the scattered details suddenly clicked together in my mind, and I did not like the picture they formed at all.
What group? What list?
Once a year, employees at my company were allowed to purchase exactly one personalized health-resort package at a corporate discount, either for themselves or for a close relative. I had submitted an application for my mother-in-law, Raisa Ivanovna, as a gift for her seventieth birthday.
I had paid for the basic two-week stay entirely from my personal bank account. The package was issued strictly in her name. Adding additional guests or transferring the benefit to third parties was absolutely forbidden.
“Lyudmila Semyonovna,” I said evenly, although a cold, calculating anger was already rising inside me. “Who exactly is included in your ‘group’? And more importantly, how much did each of you pay, and to whom?”
Lyudmila Semyonovna hesitated in confusion, then told me everything.
It turned out that my enterprising mother-in-law possessed the moral flexibility of a starving tapeworm: the moment she found something profitable, she latched onto it and refused to let go.
After receiving the booking I had paid for, Raisa Ivanovna told three of her wealthiest friends that I, being an important economist, could arrange discounted packages for three more people at half price. All they had to do was transfer the mandatory deposit directly to her bank card.
Forty thousand rubles per person.
One hundred and twenty thousand rubles in total.
I put the shirt and needle aside.
Audacity is not merely taking something without permission. It is sincerely believing that the owner will then help serve the thief.
My mother-in-law had clearly decided to become the neighborhood’s greatest benefactor by climbing onto my back, without even asking whether the back in question had agreed to carry her.
I immediately called the health resort. The administrator quickly destroyed the last of my illusions.
Only one personalized reservation had been made through my company application, and it was for Raisa Ivanovna. I remained the payer and primary contact. No group had been registered, although several standard rooms were still available at full price.
However, my mother-in-law’s basic package had undergone an astonishing transformation.
As the registered guest, Raisa Ivanovna had separately ordered a paid room upgrade to a luxury suite with a panoramic view. She had also added manual massage sessions, pearl baths, and a personalized meal plan.
She had paid the deposit for these royal conditions using her own bank card—the same card to which three trusting women had transferred their money.
While I had the administrator on the phone, I also asked about the conditions for leaving early.
The young woman confirmed that under the terms of my reservation, if the guest voluntarily checked out before the end of the stay, the unused portion would be refunded to the payer—that is, to me—minus the contractual cancellation fee.
My husband, Andrey, entered the room just as I was calculating the debits and credits of this absurd scheme.
After listening to me, he did not wring his hands, mumble excuses, or hide behind the miserable phrase, “But she’s my mother.”
My husband is a reasonable man.
He took out his phone, switched on the speaker, and called her.
“Raisa Ivanovna,” I began without a lengthy introduction as soon as she answered cheerfully. “How long have you been selling nonexistent health-resort packages under my name?”
A heavy silence settled over the other end of the line.
My mother-in-law realized that she had been exposed. She immediately began denying everything with the agility of a cockroach suddenly caught on the kitchen table when the light is switched on.
“Sveta, what are you talking about?” she chirped with false lightness. “The girls wanted to come so badly! I know your factory always has unused places. Would it really be so difficult for you to call your boss? Just ask them to arrange it! It would raise my status in the group too!”
She expected me to retreat into a shell of guilt like a frightened snail.
She expected me to rush around saving her reputation, simply to prevent the family scandal from becoming public.
“I work as an economist, not a magician,” I said sharply. “You took money for something that doesn’t exist.”
“How dare you!” Raisa Ivanovna instantly inflated with outrage like a deep-sea blobfish dragged abruptly to the surface. “They’ve already packed their suitcases! They’ve bought train tickets! Do you want to humiliate me in front of respectable people? You created this mess, so now you can find a way out of it, since you’re so clever!”
That was when Andrey entered the conversation.
“Mom, you didn’t just deceive Sveta,” he said sternly. “You took money from three women while using my wife’s name. You will return every last ruble, including whatever they lose on their tickets. I will personally check every transfer.”
Andrey ended the call and then contacted all three of his mother’s friends himself. He recorded the amounts they had paid, asked them to keep their receipts, and explained that no such discounts existed.
A volcanic eruption began on my mother-in-law’s phone.
The deceived women, realizing that they had been scammed, demanded their money back immediately.
The arithmetic of Raisa Ivanovna’s greed collapsed with a deafening crash.
Out of the 120,000 rubles she had collected, she had already paid a 60,000-ruble deposit for the luxury suite and additional treatments. She had kept the remaining 60,000 on her card to spend on entertainment during the vacation.
After urgently canceling all the extras, the health resort refunded her 42,000 rubles, withholding an 18,000-ruble penalty for the late cancellation.
That left my mother-in-law with 102,000 rubles.
But she needed to repay 120,000.
In addition, Lyudmila Semyonovna and Galina Nikolaevna returned their train tickets and lost 6,000 rubles in cancellation fees.
Vera Alekseyevna did not return her ticket. She simply booked one of the remaining standard rooms with her own money and paid the full price.
To settle everything with her furious friends, Raisa Ivanovna had to add 24,000 rubles from her own untouchable savings.
The mink coat she had dreamed of buying for three years was postponed indefinitely.
I did not cancel my original gift.
Two days before check-in, canceling it without losing everything I had paid was already impossible, and the rules prohibited transferring the reservation to anyone else.
I had no intention of throwing away my own money merely to make a dramatic point.
“You’re only going because canceling the trip would punish Sveta, who paid for everything,” Andrey told his mother over the phone before her departure. “But this is the last health-resort package, the last gift, and the last benefit you will ever receive through our family.”
Raisa Ivanovna went after all.
She received exactly the basic standard room without a single additional treatment—the package I had originally given her.
She had apparently hoped that once she was far from home, she could spread her feathers like a glamorous socialite and pretend everything was going according to plan.
It did not work.
That same evening, Vera Alekseyevna called me and, with undisguised delight, repeated their encounter at the reception desk almost word for word.
When my mother-in-law smiled brightly and tried to announce loudly, “Oh, Vera, look at us! We finally made it!” her neighbor did not even flinch.
“I’m staying here with my own hard-earned money,” Vera Alekseyevna replied loudly enough for the entire lobby to hear. “You’re staying with money your daughter-in-law spent on you. Miss!” she called to the administrator. “Please put me on another floor. I don’t want to breathe the same air as a fraud.”
Raisa Ivanovna immediately deflated.
As Vera later told me, throughout the entire two-week stay my mother-in-law avoided her in the dining room and moved through the corridors in short, cautious bursts, always peeking around corners first.
But the true peak of her audacity came on the very first evening.
Raisa Ivanovna called me. I put the phone on speaker.
“Sveta!” My mother-in-law’s voice trembled with righteous indignation, like a seagull whose piece of bread had just been snatched from its beak. “This isn’t a room—it’s a storage closet! The window overlooks garbage bins! Is this what you call a seventieth-birthday gift? Call them immediately and pay for a proper room!”
My husband and I exchanged glances.
“I am your mother-in-law! You are obligated to—” she began, raising her voice.
“Being related to me does not turn me into your wallet. I owe you nothing,” I interrupted, articulating every word. “You wanted to look like an all-powerful lady at someone else’s expense. It didn’t work. Now you can stay in the standard room that I actually gave you.”
“I’ll leave tomorrow!” she shrieked, hoping to frighten us.
I smiled, remembering my conversation with the administrator.
“Be my guest. If you check out early, the unused portion of the stay will be refunded to my card. At least I’ll save a little money.”
A dull, lifeless silence followed.
My mother-in-law was frantically trying to process the fact that her threat had turned against her.
“Good night, Mom,” Andrey said firmly, and personally ended the call.
A year later, when vacation season was approaching again, Raisa Ivanovna called me as though nothing had happened.
“Sveta, is your company offering packages to that same health resort this year?” she asked in a syrupy, overly sweet voice.
“They are, Raisa Ivanovna. Write down the phone number.”
“Whose number? The HR department?”
“No. The general reservations department. The Raisa Ivanovna Charity Foundation in my home has been permanently closed.”