Getting Revenge
She made sure nobody was watching as she nonchalantly scooped up the bulging purse and pulled it under the table. Quickly flipping it open, she saw that unmistakeable lace on the wedding dress that was unceremoniously wadded up inside.
Just what did she think she was doing? Her ears began to pound as her blood pressure began to climb. She’d been a doormat for months, and now she had finally snapped.
Severing Ties
48-year-old dressmaker Mary Stone had done her level best to keep Janis Lindsey out of her life. Tired of the constant manipulation, mooching, and self-centeredness of her college “friend,” she carefully severed all ties and got on with her own life.
Unfortunately, she lived in a small town. So when Janis sent her a seemingly-innocuous friend request on Facebook, she should have known better.
Back In Her Life
Wherever Janis went, the drama was sure to follow. In fact, she seemed to thrive on it. Mary accepted her friend request out of politeness and didn’t give it much more thought.
But with just one click, she undid all the years spent building boundaries to protect herself from Janis and effectively offered her a gilded invitation back into her life. Except now, it wasn’t just herself she had to protect.
Giving Back
Mary had settled down with her husband and had a beautiful teenage daughter. She took great pride in the initiative she and her husband had built from the ground up.
They had formed a group of community members, volunteering all their spare time to helping the underprivileged in the area, so Mary didn’t have time for much else. But, immediately after Mary accepted Janis’ friend request, the phone calls began.
Persistent
The calls from Janis were insistent. She’d call multiple times a day, trying to force Mary to drop everything so that they could spend time together… or at least, that’s what Mary thought she wanted.
She began to show up at Mary’s workplace unannounced, demanding Mary’s attention. And when Mary set some boundaries, Janis doubled down.
Escape
It wasn’t long before Janis’ teenage daughters were calling, too. Janis made them call Mary “Auntie,” and even tried to drop them off at her house uninvited.
Mary’s saving grace was the community center headquarters. There, she could turn her phone off and escape from Janis and her outrageous demands for a little while. The woman was becoming a nightmare, but this was just a taste of what was to come.
Community Service
Mary’s group offered various services, from organizing toy and blanket drives, to collecting unwanted prom and wedding dresses, and being a dressmaker, Mary would alter them herself. They even offered a free venue for those who couldn’t afford it.
The venue was also the community center headquarters, a farm owned by an elderly couple who was kind enough to let Mary’s group use it for free when it wasn’t booked. It had a barn, a lake with some ducks, and a beautiful field. But eventually, Janis would ruin all that.
Uninvited
Now, Mary took it upon herself to organize and host an informal get-together at her home to welcome new members to the organization each month.
She’d cater, decorate, and plan the welcome program. On one of these occasions, the event was well underway when who should arrive with a smirk at the door, uninvited, with five children in tow?
The Center Of Attention
You see, Janis was obsessed with being the center of attention. Mary knew she had always dreamed of having kids one day.
Almost as an afterthought, she’d married her husband while she was still in college and immediately began to build her brood. She’d seen how much attention pregnant women got and decided she wanted that, too.
Infinite Patience
Meanwhile, Janis’ husband slaved away at three jobs to provide for his ever-growing family while his wife fulfilled her dream.
He had tried to talk her out of baby number three, but she got her way in the end. And now, she and her brood were forcing their way into Mary’s door. But this new development wasn’t enough for mild-mannered Mary to snap… not yet.
Permissive Mother
Mary was well aware that, over the years, Janis had become the epitome of a permissive mother and let her children do as they pleased.
She looked on in horror as Janis and offspring barged their way through her door. The five children made a beeline for the bedroom -- a move that Janis had orchestrated.
Swooping in
Mary and her husband had to leave their guests to keep an eye on Janis’ ill-mannered children. And while they served as babysitters, Janis saw her opportunity and swooped in.
She boldly introduced herself to the other group members and Mary’s heart sank. Now, there was no getting rid of her. She had insidiously latched onto the group like a leech. The next phase in her plan? To suck them all dry.
She Didn't See It Coming
Mary considered Janis to be no more than a severe annoyance at this point, but she never dreamed how things would escalate. By now, Janis had wormed her way into organizing the events for the community group.
She never missed an event, and nobody was excluded from helping out, so what could Mary do? She decided to take a direct approach, but it only made things worse.
Overstepping Boundaries
“I called her days later regarding her overall behavior to get my point across,” Mary recalls. But Janis paid no heed. “She completely cut me off and began talking about herself and said her kids wanted to come visit again and use our pool.”
Janis even told her that her middle daughter was bored and said that she wanted to spend the entire Summer at “Auntie” Mary’s house. That’s when Mary began to notice some disturbing red flags on Facebook.
Red Flags
“Some cryptic rants here and there were visible… along with friends’ comments and complaints on how she asked a particular person to watch her kids only for a couple of hours and ended up leaving them all day,” Mary explained.
“I thought those very public comments on private matters were more like a cry of lost patience.” Then, unpleasant things began to happen.
Escalating
Janis volunteered to wrap all the Christmas presents that the group had collected to give to underprivileged kids. “We all wanted to create a mix of less costly gifts with really nice ones,” Mary recalls.
“Surprisingly, some nice and eye-catching toys and games went missing but turned up under her Christmas Tree (courtesy of her mother in law’s FB posts).” And, of course, nobody could prove anything. Was this finally enough to make Mary snap?