When Mia’s stepmother, Trudy, plans an elaborate party for her 45th birthday, Mia has no choice but to do as she is told, including being a hidden helper throughout the festivities. But lucky for Mia, karma seems to be on her side, ready to teach Trudy a lesson.
Grab some popcorn, folks, because this story is one of those moments when the universe steps in and delivers a cosmic smackdown right when you least expect it.
Let me introduce you to the key players of the story:
A smiling teenage girl | Source: Midjourney
I’m Mia. I’m sixteen years old and stuck in a suburban home with my dad and stepmom, Trudy. Trudy’s been around for about two years, and, oh boy, does she have the “wicked stepmother” act down perfectly.
If you looked up “entitled” in the dictionary, I’m pretty sure you’d find her picture staring back at you.
Life with her has felt like living inside a bad reality show, but no one is filming, and definitely not paying me for my trouble.
A close up of an older woman | Source: Midjourney
Dad stays out of the way as much as he can. He’s the “happy wife, happy life” type of man, except that Trudy’s never really happy. She’s the type who expects the world to fall at her feet and cater to her every whim.
Now, let’s talk about last Saturday, the day of Trudy’s birthday party. It was so over-the-top that, honestly, it could have been a wedding reception.
It was her 45th birthday, and Trudy was trying to hold on to her youth in any way she could. In the week leading up to the party, she strutted around the house like some kind of queen.
A smiling older man | Source: Midjourney
“You’d better get me something special this year, Mia,” she said when she came into the kitchen as I was cutting up fruit for my morning smoothie. “A dishwasher would be nice. After all, I’ve done a lot for you.”
Yeah, sure. Good old Trudy. She’s done a lot for me… if you count bossing me around like I’m some sort of Cinderella knockoff.
A close up of a smoothie | Source: Midjourney
“Uh, Trudy,” I said, adding yogurt to the blender, “I’m kind of saving for my prom dress.”
I already knew where this conversation was going.
Her face twisted into this weird look, like she couldn’t believe I just said that.
“Your prom dress?” she scoffed. “Mia, that’s ridiculous! You can just buy something from one of the clothing stores. Something cheap. A dishwasher is much more practical. I don’t want to hear any more excuses.”
A woman standing in a kitchen | Source: Midjourney
Excuses? I was floored. This woman really expected me to drop all my savings on an appliance just because she “deserved” it. Like, where’s my fairy godmother when I need her?
And anyway, Trudy was the one who convinced my dad that I was too young to get an after-school or weekend job.
“Mia can only babysit kids on this street,” Trudy told my dad one night at dinner. “She’ll be safe and only a few houses away from home. And anyway, it’s not like she needs that much money.”
A woman sitting at a dinner table | Source: Midjourney
So, all my prom dress savings? They were from babysitting jobs that I had taken over the past year.
They wouldn’t even cover a tiny dishwasher, let alone the dress I wanted. But I was determined to still find something that I loved.
Fast forward to the day of Trudy’s 45th birthday. The house was buzzing with caterers, an event planner ran around with a clipboard, and enough floral arrangements to rival a garden center.
An outdoor birthday party setting | Source: Midjourney
Meanwhile, I was in the background, wiping down mirrors, setting up drink stations, and generally trying to avoid all eye contact.
“Jeez,” I said to myself, “are the Royal Family coming over?”
I set up the gin station and tried to leave for my room, hoping that I would make myself presentable before Trudy’s posse of friends showed up.
A gin station | Source: Midjourney
As soon as the guests arrived, Trudy transformed into some kind of celebrity. She walked around, tossing fake smiles and soaking up compliments like she was at the Oscars or something.
“Mia! Can you refill the drinks? My guests are thirsty!” she barked from the marquee outside.
Of course, I had no choice but to do so. I couldn’t say no. Not with so many people around. Trudy would probably implode.
A woman wearing a gold dress | Source: Midjourney
I did as I was told, floating around like the invisible Cinderella. I was counting down the minutes until we lit the candles on the elaborate cake and the whole day would just dwindle into nothing.
I hid away for a few moments, finally able to get my hands on some food. At least Trudy loved her food, and she had told the caterers that she wanted elaborate meals.
“You’re hiding here, kiddo?” my dad chuckled when he caught me eating a portion of lobster mac and cheese.
A bowl of lobster mac and cheese | Source: Midjourney
“I’m starving, Dad,” I said, eating another forkful of food. “And everyone is eating anyway.”
“Take some time off, Mimi,” he said. “Eat. I’ll bring you one of those fancy milkshakes from the milkshake station.”
Soon after, it was time for the cake. My dad lit the candles while Trudy beamed like a Cheshire cat and did a little dance.
A gold and white cake | Source: Midjourney
Everyone sang for her at the top of their voices, and Trudy blew out the candles. As the party was winding down, she clinked her fork against her wine glass and fixed me with that awful, expectant glare of hers.
“Mia, since you didn’t bother to buy me a dishwasher for my birthday, the least you could do is wash all these dishes. It’s only fair.”
I stood there, stunned for a second. Everyone went quiet. Twenty pairs of eyes stared at me like I was the villain in this scenario.
She really said it. Out loud. In front of all her friends.
A smug woman in a gold dress | Source: Midjourney
“You didn’t get your mom a birthday present?” one of Trudy’s friends, Alexis, said. “That’s just… rude. And sad.”
My throat tightened, but I managed to keep my voice calm.
“Trudy, I told you, I didn’t have the money. Especially for a dishwasher. I’ve been saving for prom.”
She waved her hand like I was talking nonsense.
An upset teenage girl | Source: Midjourney
“Just wash the dishes, Mia,” she said. “Do something useful for once.”
I could have screamed. But instead, I swallowed my pride and nodded.
“Fine. I’ll get changed and started on them,” I said.
I spent the next hour elbow-deep in soapy water, scrubbing until my fingers went numb. I wanted to cry, but instead, I just scrubbed harder, imagining the day I’d finally escape this madhouse.
A teenager washing dishes | Source: Midjourney
By the time I finished, the party was over, and Trudy’s friends were long gone. I dragged myself to bed, emotionally drained.
The next morning, I woke up to the sound of Trudy’s shriek coming from the kitchen. I thought maybe one of her fancy new gadgets broke. She had just bought herself a lavish new coffee machine that looked like it belonged in a coffee shop.
A coffee machine | Source: Midjourney
But when I walked into the kitchen, I found her standing in the middle of a disaster zone.
The kitchen was trashed.
The smell of burnt plastic filled the air, and the floor was flooded.
“Mia!” she screamed when she saw me. “Look at what happened!”
A flooded kitchen | Source: Midjourney
I blinked, still half-asleep.
“What… what is going on?”
“The pipes!” she shrieked, flailing her arms. “Oh, my kitchen is ruined! This is going to cost a fortune to fix!”
“But everything was fine last night when I went to bed. What happened here?”
My dad stuck his head into the kitchen.
An annoyed woman | Source: Midjourney
“Trudy, did you really drop all the meat oils into the sink last night?” my dad asked.
“I did!” she said. “I didn’t know where else to throw it out. And the caterers left without taking it. But I did throw some drain cleaner down the sink, too.”
“Oh, Trudy! You’re not supposed to do that! Now look! You messed this up! I told you to just pour out a kettle of boiling water.”
Oil being poured in a sink | Source: Midjourney
My first instinct was to laugh. I know I shouldn’t have, but come on. After everything? Didn’t it just seem like karma played a part in this, too?
While Trudy was losing her mind, I couldn’t help but feel a tiny smirk tugging at my lips. I didn’t say a word.
For the next week, the kitchen was completely out of commission. My dad, bless his heart, tried to soothe her, but the damage was done. The cost of the repairs was so high that Dad announced that they’d have to cut back on expenses.
An annoyed woman | Source: Midjourney
“Except for Mia,” he said. “I have $500 for her prom dress.”
“You can’t be serious, David!” Trudy hissed. “You want me to pay for the new kitchen tiles, but you can spoil Mia?”
“You spoiled yourself for your party. I can spoil my child for her prom.”
A smiling man | Source: Midjourney
And that was how Trudy learned not to cross my dad. But she did change her tune a bit. She allowed me to get my part-time job, and she tried to actually mend things with me.
“I’ll come with you when you go looking for your dress, Mia,” she said.
Do you think it will last?
Dad Grows Suspicious After Noticing His Daughter Lingers on the School Bus Longer Than Other Kids — Story of the Day
A father worried about why his daughter often remained behind in the school bus after others left, so he decided to find answers. What he found was not what he expected.
Benjamin Bruce was a single dad who had to step in to become his child’s mother after she passed away. Their daughter, Emily, had been six when it happened.
Ben loved his daughter because, to him, she was all that was left of his beloved wife, and he had also promised her that Emily would be well taken care of no matter what.
To that end, Ben tried his best to juggle work while being present in his daughter’s life. He had no other family he trusted to look after her, so he had to do everything himself.
The first couple of years were rough on him as a parent, and just as he was acclimatizing to the rollercoaster, his daughter hit puberty, and at that point, things got wilder.
She suddenly started going through physical changes right before his eyes, and he knew what they meant — the boys would be coming for her. How could they not; his daughter had his late wife’s red hair and deep green eyes that seemed designed to mesmerize.
Even Ben was not immune to her eyes and had fallen prey to her will multiple times over the years. When she clocked 12, two years after she hit puberty, Emily discovered boys.
That led to her paying a lot of attention to her hair and appearance because she wanted to look good for her school crush. Ben was prepared to beat back boys with a stick if need be, but what he was not ready for was caring for his daughter’s looks.
Emily had to do that herself, but she was terrible at it with no role model to learn from. Ben often just cut her hair short as a child because he knew nothing about hair care, but he had to respect her wishes to keep her hair longer as she grew older.
There was little he would not do for his child, so to help her, he started brushing her hair when it was long enough. He was a big man, and even though he tried to be gentle, he occasionally pulled it out.
“Ouch!!!!” she yelled one day.
“I’m sorry baby,” he apologized quickly, as he always did.
“You need to be more gentle daddy,” she would admonish him sometimes.
Other times, she just endured the pain because she did not want to make her father feel terrible for causing it. Ben felt the sting of his failure each time his daughter complained of her hair getting pulled out, and that made him try to cut her hair again.
“Just get rid of it all,” he would say when they argued about it sometimes. “Your mom kept her hair cropped short and she still looked wonderful.”
“Daddy, I will no longer cut my hair, look how slow its growth is because of how often you cut it in the past,” she would shoot back. In any case, Ben never won the arguments, but he didn’t need to; they stopped coming up after a short while.
Shortly after that, he noticed that his daughter started getting tardy notices from her class teacher, Mrs. Flynn. So he called the woman to find out.
“That’s right, Mr. Bruce. Your daughter has five tardy notices this week alone. Is there anything going on I should know about?” the woman asked him.
“Nothing is going on. Things have been great at home for some time now and I do release her to join the bus early so I’m sure she makes it to school when others do,” he explained.
“Did you notice anything going on with her this past week?” Ben asked.
“Well, I was running late for class once and I saw her alight from the bus rather late even though she should have been in class by that time. The driver probably knows something about it because only they can access the bus at any time.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Flynn, I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Ben told her before ending the call.
Worried about why his daughter was spending extra time on a bus, Ben followed her the next day. True to what Mrs. Flynn told him, he noticed that everyone on the bus alighted when it arrived on the school grounds — everyone but his daughter.
As soon as he could, Ben burst into the bus in a rush thinking the worst but was instead met with the scene of a nice 40-year-old woman combing his daughter’s hair. The woman, Madeline, was the bus driver.
“Mr. Bruce?” the woman exclaimed at his sudden entry as Emily looked up, surprised to see her father.
“Dad? What are you doing here?”
“Hello ma’am,” Ben said after clearing his throat and righting himself. “Sorry about barging in, but I heard my daughter was getting tardy notices so I came to see why.”
“Oh, well in that case, here’s why,” the woman said, gesturing to his daughter’s hair. “I noticed how she seemed to struggle with her hair so I offered to help her brush it every day before she goes to class because she says her rough hair often makes her feel bad.”
“Honey,” Ben said to his daughter. “You never told me this.”
“I just didn’t want you to worry about it,” Emily defended.
Later that day, Ben invited Madeline for coffee. When the bus driver heard about what happened to his wife, she started to cry.
She herself was a cancer survivor, and she was well aware of how lucky she was to have pulled through and was grateful that she could still be there for her own children.
Madeline was convinced she survived for the kids on the bus who needed somebody to talk to or do their hair or whatever, so she begged Ben to find a compromise that would help his daughter.
To that end, Ben spoke to Mrs. Flynn, her teacher, and after explaining things to the woman, Emily was never given a tardy notice again. Ben was grateful to Madeline, and he remained close friends with her for a long time.
What did we learn from this story?
Never jump to conclusions. Ben gave himself a fright when he immediately assumed something sinful was happening between the bus driver and his child, and if he had not taken the pains to confirm it, things might have taken a terrible turn.
Give back when you can. Madeline believed he was spared from death to take care of other kids, and that was what she did. Caring for those kids was her way of giving back, and it left her feeling fulfilled, especially since she was able to touch lives like Emily’s and Ben’s.
Share this story with your friends. It might brighten their day and inspire them.
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