My MIL Kept Snooping Through My Packages – Until I Taught Her a Lesson She’ll Never Forget

Cecelia thinks enough is enough after learning that her mother-in-law has been opening her private packages without authorization. But what happens if Martha finds something she’ll wish she hadn’t noticed because of her propensity of snooping? Can everything be changed permanently by a single, well-planned delivery?

I felt like my life was finally perfect when I was radiant and five months pregnant. Almost perfect, actually.

Arnold, my ideal spouse, still brought me coffee in bed each morning and massaged my swollen feet. We had saved for years to buy our modest house with the white picket fence, and I had it. We wanted the gender to be a surprise, so I even had the nursery partially painted in a gentle yellow.

The only thing preventing me from being completely happy was Martha, my mother-in-law.

Please understand that Arnold is the ideal husband for me. He’s hilarious, patient, and really understanding of my pregnant cravings.

He didn’t grumble when he traveled twenty minutes to fetch me pickle ice cream at midnight last week. However, I wasn’t fully ready for what I inherited when we were married and I moved into his home.

His mom.

Following the death of his father, Martha had been living with Arnold for three years.

She was twice as stubborn and as sharp as a tack at 65. She lived with us, but that wasn’t the issue. Her total disregard for boundaries, particularly with regard to packages, was the issue.

Whether it was Amazon, FedEx, or UPS made no difference. The woman was watching a variety of deliveries. Like she was in the Olympics, she would run to the door as soon as she heard that vehicle thundering down our street. She grabbed whatever was brought and tore into it like it was Christmas morning before I could even check my phone’s tracking notification.

It wouldn’t matter if my name were plastered in bold letters all over the box. She never apologized later or sought for permission.

She simply dismissed it with her go-to justification.

“Oh, I thought it might be something important for the house,” she would add, naively batting her lashes.

I chewed my tongue most of the time. The family conflict wasn’t worth it, I assured myself. However, being pregnant had made me more sensitive to boundaries and more defensive of my personal space.

Now everything felt more intimate.

My covert preparation of our gender-reveal celebration last month was the tipping point.

For weeks, I had been placing orders for party materials, games, and decorations. In order to conceal everything before Arnold arrived home from work, I was meticulously scheduling deliveries. I believed it would be a lovely surprise for our families.

The day that ruined everything, however, arrived.

The tracking indicated that the large box of themed party items I had ordered had arrived at around noon. After my doctor’s appointment, I saw that the front door was open when I pulled into our driveway.

When I entered, the box on our kitchen counter was in utter ruin.

Like confetti, tissue paper was all over the place. And there was Martha, smiling as if she had just solved a murder case, holding up a brilliant blue card from the parcel.

Arnold was working in his home office when she yelled, “It’s a boy!” across the house. “Is it not unbelievable? Cecelia is expecting a boy.

My cheeks were burning.

That was our time. Arnold and I were to tell our families about it, and it was a surprise. We had been preparing our spectacular announcement for weeks.

But in one careless, self-centered moment, Martha had taken it away from us.

She was brandishing a card that was part of an entire set of “It’s a Boy” party supplies. Our counter was now strewn with everything we needed for the ideal gender reveal.

I wanted to scream, pick up that box, and hurl it across the room at that moment. But no one knew Martha’s game as well as I did.

Dramatic outbursts allowed her to play the victim later, which is why she thrived on them.

She would scream, “Oh, poor me,” to anyone who would listen. “I was just trying to help and look how she treated me!”

So I swallowed my anger instead. I gritted my teeth and remained silent.

However, I was already planning my retaliation in my mind.

I figured that since Martha was so interested in looking through my gifts, I should offer her something that would be worth looking at.

Arnold fell asleep that night, so I picked up my laptop and went shopping.

This time, I wasn’t searching for pregnant supplements or baby outfits. No, I was planning something far more instructive for my inquisitive mother-in-law.

The first thing on my buying list for retaliation? The largest, noisiest, and most absurd adult toy I could locate on the internet. I found the ideal option after scrolling through dozens of others.

It had enough bells and whistles to run a small airplane, and it was bright neon pink.

More significantly, it was assured to arrive in discrete packaging with my name prominently placed on the label, even though the reviews were funny.

A glitter bomb disguised as a plain padded envelope was the second item I selected.

Martha was ideal for my objectives, even though I had heard them promoted as tricks for package thieves. She would be plastered with tiny, glittery particles that would adhere to everything for weeks as soon as she opened it.

With my name prominently displayed on each label, both things were prepared for overnight delivery.

However, this is where I became quite intelligent about the situation. I recalled our front entrance security camera.

Months before, Arnold and I had erected it after dealing with a dubious contractor who kept showing up without permission.

More significantly, the camera would record every Martha grab-and-run incident as well as every package delivery.

In case she attempted to deny her tendency of snooping, there was perfect proof for later.

I anxiously tracked both parcels the following morning. Every few minutes, my phone buzzed with updates.

I felt as like I was going to run a marathon when the shipping app finally pinging “Package delivered,” my heart began to race.

I stood by the window of our living room, feigning to read a pregnancy magazine while keeping a hawk-eye on the front door.

Two seemingly innocent-looking parcels were left on our porch after the delivery van left. My name was prominently displayed on a medium-sized box and a tiny cushioned envelope.

The show I had been anticipating then arrived.

The door to Martha’s bedroom squeaked open. As she headed to the front door, I heard her footsteps pounding down the hallway. As if she had placed the order, she wrenched it open quickly and dragged both things inside.

Faster than I’d ever seen her move, she pressed them to her chest and vanished back into her room.

There was no sound at all in our home for the following ten minutes. I wondered which package she would open first as I sat there counting down the seconds. Which would it be—the enigmatic box or the innocent-looking envelope?

Then it took place.

From Martha’s bedroom, I heard a scream that might have roused the dead.

After that, there were thuds and smashes that sounded like someone battling with a wild animal.

Her footsteps were different this time, yet her door creaked open once more. She was moving slowly, as if she had just lost the greatest battle of her life.

Then I heard Martha scurrying toward the kitchen after hearing something heavy being placed on our living room table.

After waiting for a few more minutes, I entered the living room with Buster, our dog, following me.

Like evidence at a crime scene, my opened packages were sitting on the coffee table. As it sat there in all its absurd grandeur, the neon-pink shame was too obvious to ignore. However, the glitter explosion was the true masterpiece.

Everything within three feet was covered in glittering silver.

It covered Martha’s reading glasses, which she had reportedly dropped in her panic, and was adhered to the table and strewn all over our rug.

Martha was washing her hands quickly in the kitchen, and I could hear it.

“Everything okay out here?” I called politely, well aware of what had transpired.

The water instantly stopped. Martha emerged from the doorway, her hair a little unkempt, and her cheek still glistening with little bits of glitter.

She was unable to look me in the eye for the first time since I’d known her.

“Oh, yes, dear,” she muttered, trembling as she wrung her hands. “Just, um, just cleaning up a little spill.”

I approached the coffee table, picked up the empty glitter bomb package, and looked at it in a state of theatrical bewilderment. “My name is on this, hmm. Have you noticed who opened this?

Her face flushed three times. “I… well… it was just sitting there, and I thought maybe…”

“Maybe what, Martha?” I spoke in a really nice and serene tone. “Maybe it was for you, even though it clearly says ‘Cecelia’ on the address label?”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. This time, no justification was offered.

Arnold, just out of his Zoom conference, picked that precise moment to enter the room. When he noticed the neon pink problem and glitter catastrophe on our coffee table, he came to a complete halt.

He glanced from me to his mother and said, “What in the world happened here?”

I flashed my most naive smile at Martha. Martha, why don’t you tell him? My packages were opened by you.”

Martha, however, was mute. She looked around uneasily and fidgeted with her wedding band before giving up and running back to her bedroom.

She said, “Sorry, sorry,” and fled. “Won’t happen again.”

After a moment of taking in the spectacle, Arnold turned to face me with a mix of amazement and astonishment. “Did you really order a glitter bomb to catch my mother snooping?”

“Maybe,” I answered, unable to contain my smile. “And it worked perfectly.”

I could see him suppressing his laughter even though he shook his head. “You’re awful. And very clever. but generally awful.

After that day, a miraculous event occurred. Until I got home, every parcel that came in lay unopened on our porch.

Martha simply muttered something about shipments not being her business anyhow when Arnold casually asked his mother why she had stopped helping with them.

The true triumph, however, came when Martha attempted to preserve her reputation by telling the rest of the family her version of events. She began to insinuate to his aunt Karen and Arnold’s cousins that I had been placing questionable orders during my pregnancy. She portrayed herself as the helpless victim who had unintentionally come upon a horrible event.

She explained, “I was just trying to help with packages,” to anyone who would listen. “And I found… well, let’s just say it was very inappropriate for an expectant mother.”

For around two days, I was concerned that her rumors may come to pass. Jenny, Arnold’s cousin, even sent me a worried text.

“Hey girl, I heard that packages caused some drama. Martha appeared quite agitated over something you ordered, according to Mom.

I realized it was time to use the major guns at that point.

I watched the security camera tape on that fateful delivery day with Arnold.

Martha was there, running across our porch as if she were preparing for the Olympics, grabbing my parcel as soon as it reached the floor, and vanishing inside with it wrapped tightly around her chest.

We forwarded the video recording to all of her family members with whom she had been chatting.

The family group chat exploded with responses in a matter of hours. The knockout blow was administered by Arnold’s aunt, Karen.

“You tried to humiliate a pregnant mother while snooping, stealing items, and lying about it? You’re fortunate, Martha, that all you received was glitter.

She is now formally known as the Package Bandit. And me? I always smile when I see an unopened package waiting for me. It brings to mind the mess caused by the glitter bomb.