Upstairs Mom Demanded I Buy Sky-High Meals, I Did, She Cried

First day in the new place.

The mom from upstairs shoved a contract at me and demanded that all three of us buy her meal boxes, three meals a day.

It isn't easy for a single mom to start her own business. You're a mom too. We should help each other out. You should support my business.

And my boxes are safe and clean. My son and I eat them ourselves. I'd never gamble with anyone's health.

I let my eyes drift to the prices.

The cheapest vegetarian box was eighty-eight dollars. Two meats and a vegetable ran a hundred and eighty-eight.

So I turned her down, gently.

I explained that our whole family either ate at the company cafeteria or over at my parents' place.

It was the plain truth. But she took it as me refusing the easy way and asking for the hard way.

To make me cave, she had her intellectually disabled son, all two hundred-plus pounds of him, pound out noise upstairs like a madman.

And in the end she used those meal boxes as a betrothal gift.

She came banging drums and gongs to my door, demanding I hand over a house and a car as a dowry and marry my daughter off to her disabled son.

The other neighbors all told me to just pay up and make the trouble go away.

To stop hurting myself and disturbing the peace of the whole building.

I looked at the dark circles under my husband's eyes, at my daughter too scared to leave the apartment because that boy kept harassing her.

And I laughed, cold and low.

You want me to buy your meal boxes?

Fine. Let's see if you dare take the money once I hand it over.

One:

I'd barely finished tidying up when the doorbell rang.

I checked the smart doorbell camera and saw it was Thelma James, the single mother from upstairs, so I hurried to open the door.

She didn't wait to be invited. She walked straight into my apartment, took a look around, and settled onto my couch like she owned the place.

Then she waved me over to sit down, like I was the guest, and tossed a few sheets of A4 paper at me.

"You just moved in, so you probably don't know."

"Everybody who moves into this building has to order my meal boxes based on the number of people in the household, three meals a day. The first month is mandatory, but after that you can order as needed."

"But my boxes are all green and natural, tasty and safe, so pretty much every household here orders at least two meals a day."

"You're three people, so that's nine boxes a day. Take a look and tell me which price point you want."

I'd never met a neighbor who forced a sale like this, and honestly I was at a loss for words.

But the whole reason I'd moved here was that I hadn't gotten along with the neighbors at my last place. A close neighbor beats a distant relative, or so the saying goes, and I didn't want to be the odd one out the second I moved in.

I couldn't eat the boxes myself, but I figured I could buy them and give them to the sanitation workers or the cleaning ladies in the complex.

Then I actually looked at the prices, and my jaw dropped.

Caring Pure Vegetarian, eighty-eight dollars a box.

Balanced Nutrition, one meat one vegetable, a hundred and thirty-eight a box.

Royal Indulgence, two meats one vegetable with a soup of the day, a hundred and eighty-eight a box.

At those prices, even if I picked the cheapest, that was seventy-nine hundred a month, not counting the ten-dollar delivery fee per meal. A quick calculation, and it came out to more than half my monthly salary.

So I shook my head fast.

"Thank you for the offer, but I won't be ordering the boxes."

Then I felt like that came out too blunt, so I added a bit more.

"My husband and I both have pretty demanding jobs, and we usually eat all three meals at our workplace cafeterias."

"My kid eats at the school cafeteria, and for dinner my parents pick her up and she eats at their place. So there's really no need."

I'd said it kindly, and it was the truth.

But Thelma's face changed in an instant.

She slapped the couch hard, several times, then jabbed a finger in my face and started yelling.

"What is this?"

"You think you're something because you've got a career? You look down on a single mom raising a kid on her own?"

"How can you be so cruel? You're a mom too, you know how expensive it is to raise a kid. What gives you the right to keep me from making a living?"

"Let me tell you, you have to buy these boxes. And even if you don't buy them, you're still going to give me the money, or else..."

I was furious.

Forcing a sale on me and saying it with a straight face, like she had every right. Someone who didn't know better would think she ran the local mob.

So I didn't let Thelma finish.

I stood up, grabbed her, and hauled her out the door, half dragging her the whole way.

She was practically apoplectic. She wouldn't leave, just pounded on my door for all she was worth.

"Open up."

"Open this door and order your boxes right now. I already bought the ingredients for your family's meals tomorrow. That cost me a few dollars. You can't just say you won't buy. What am I supposed to do with all that food?"

"You have to make up for my losses."

She looked like a lunatic to me, and clearly had no intention of leaving, so I waited until she'd yelled herself tired and spoke up.

"If you don't leave, I'm calling building management, and then I'm calling the police."

Thelma knew I was watching her through the screen, so she stared into my smart doorbell camera for a long moment, then gave my door one last kick.

"Athena Wise, is it?"

"I've got you marked now. You just wait. The day will come when you're begging to come to me, begging to buy my meal boxes."

I thought she was just talking.

But I learned fast what she was capable of. She lived directly above me, so she started making noise around the clock.

Every morning at five sharp she'd start hacking at pork ribs, mincing meat filling, running the juicer for orange juice, and whenever she wore herself out, she'd send her son Boyd up top to jump and stomp.

Once we left for work, she rested.

Then at night, when we were trying to sleep, she'd pick up right where the five a.m. racket left off, and it wouldn't go quiet until two or three in the morning.

The soundproofing in this building was nothing special, and worse, she deliberately did all of it on the floor right above our master bedroom, so my husband and I were worn ragged.

I knew Thelma was doing it on purpose.

But I still went up and knocked, and asked her to keep it down.

Thelma didn't bother arguing with me when she saw me. She just went smug and snide.

"What?"

"You white-collar city types think you get to run everything, and now you're going to run whether I can make breakfast in my own home too?"

"If I don't cook, what does my son eat? What does everyone else in this building eat?"

"If the noise bothers you, buy some earplugs or move out. Problem solved, right?"

I knew there was no reasoning with her, so I took some time off and went down to the building management office, hoping they could step in and mediate. Those management fees weren't cheap, after all.

The moment I walked in, I saw a lot of familiar faces, all neighbors from our building.

"Are you all here to file a complaint too?"

The other neighbors looked me over and immediately started talking over each other.

You're the neighbor who won't buy Thelma's meal boxes, aren't you?

Are you people so broke you can't even afford a boxed meal?

You think you got off easy by not buying, but the rest of us are suffering for it!

I frowned. I could tell they'd come to the office because of Thelma's noise too, but the way they were talking, somehow I was the one in the wrong.

Before I could get a word out.

The building manager pulled out a "petition," looking a little awkward.

"Ms. Wise, this is a formal complaint signed by the neighbors in your building."

"Except for your family and Thelma and her son upstairs, every single resident signed it."

"But the complaint is against you, not Thelma."

I froze. It didn't make sense.

"Thelma's the one making the noise, and Thelma's the one forcing overpriced meal boxes on people. Why are they complaining about me?"

The manager sighed.

"Ms. Wise, you have no idea. Thelma really isn't someone you want to cross."

"Nobody wants to buy those insanely expensive pre-made meal boxes, but if you don't, she goes off the rails, stirs up trouble, and makes the whole building miserable."

"You may not know this, but her son Boyd is intellectually disabled, and he's over two hundred pounds. There's nothing we can do about them."

"That's why the previous owner moved out and sold you the place cheap."

"You got a deal on the apartment, so just spend a little on the meal boxes. Then everything stays quiet."

I was furious.

So this was why she acted with such nerve. Because so many people were afraid of her.

"You're all afraid of her. I'm not!"

But watching the rest of these neighbors, the kind who bully the weak and cave to the strong, gear up to "reason" with me, I couldn't be bothered to stay. I turned and went home.

Maybe it was because I'd gone to management.

Thelma actually stayed quiet for several days.

But before the week was out, I got home from work and, just as I reached my door, I heard someone running up the stairs. My brand-new security door was covered in knife marks, and the smart doorbell camera had been hacked apart.

I stared down the stairwell.

"Stop hiding. I already saw you."

Thelma came strolling over, all smiles.

"I just heard someone chopping at your door, and I thought, a good neighbor's worth more than distant kin, so I came to check on you for you. But whoever it was ran off the second I came down."

"Just goes to show you've made quite a few enemies."

I knew it was her.

So I called the police right away.

"Hello, someone's committing an assault with a knife. Please come immediately!"

The cops showed up fast.

I explained what had happened and pointed straight at Thelma James.

The second I named her, Thelma dropped to the floor and started wailing like the world was ending.

How can you bully a single mom like me? I only came down to see what was going on, and now suddenly I'm the one who did it?

You just think that because I've got no man to stand up for me, you can drag my name through the mud right here.

Apologize to me today, or I'll throw myself off this building and prove I'm innocent with my own death!

As she said it, Thelma made a big show of trying to jump.

The neighbors rushed to hold her back, and every one of them turned on me, pointing in my face, calling me a troublemaker who stirred up nothing but garbage.

I knew there was no reasoning with a woman like her, so I just pulled out my phone and brought up the footage from the smart doorbell camera.

Still trying to flip it back on me. Look for yourself. Who's that in the footage if not your son, Boyd?

The moment Thelma saw the video, she stopped screaming about jumping off the roof.

Instead she shoved Boyd, still clutching his toy doll, toward us.

I've been done with this retard son of mine for ages. Go on, take him, and stop dropping him back at my door.

The footage shows him doing it anyway, so it's got nothing to do with me!

Even if they sentence him to death I won't say a word about it. Honestly, I'd feel relieved.

But the way Thelma was playing it put the cops in a bind.

They pulled me aside and explained in a low voice.

You've seen how it is. We know all about this Thelma. We've been out here plenty over her, but she's clever. Whatever she wants done, she makes her son do it.

And her son is disabled, the kind with a disability certificate. She uses that like a get-out-of-jail-free card.

And every time she judges it perfectly. She makes sure it gets to you without ever really hurting you. It makes this genuinely hard for us to deal with.

So if you want compensation for the door and the doorbell, your only option is to go through the courts.

The cops mediated and talked things over, and Thelma immediately agreed to pay for all the damage. She was cooperative, admitted fault, and since no one had actually been hurt, the cops had no choice but to leave.

Once they were gone, Thelma just gave a cold little laugh.

I paid five thousand for your door and lock. But it's fine. The neighbors all chipped in to cover that five thousand for me.

Can't help it. People just like me that much.

My son's a good boy, too. You're the one who wouldn't buy my meal boxes, that's the only reason he got so upset and came smashing your door.

You'd better watch yourself. That knife landed on your door today. Tomorrow, who knows where it lands.

I was half dead with rage.

Even more pleased with herself, Thelma dragged over the older woman who lived across the hall from me.

The woman shot me a glare and shuffled over, stammering.

From now on you're not allowed to put up any of that smart doorbell camera business.

That doorbell films me, it violates my priv... no, my privacy rights. You put it up, and I'll call the cops and have you arrested!

I couldn't hold back anymore.

I wanted to have it out with Thelma once and for all, but my husband and daughter clamped onto me and hauled me back inside, dragging me the whole way, and shut our battered front door.

Thelma didn't press it any further.

She just stood in the doorway, pulled out her payment code, split the five thousand in repair money among the neighbors, and then walked off humming a tune.

After that.

I replaced the door and swapped the smart doorbell camera for an ordinary lock.

Thelma went quiet too, no more scenes, no more coming to my door to cause trouble. My husband said it meant she was scared of me, but something felt off to me the whole time, like she was holding back for something bigger.

I still hadn't figured it out.

Then my daughter came home crying.

Mom, that Boyd from upstairs blocked me at the entrance to the complex and grabbed my backpack.

And he called me... he called me his wifey!

My head went blank with a rush of noise.

I circled Lily at once, checking her over, but she wasn't hurt, her clothes were all fine, and apart from her backpack being snatched and torn, everything about her was normal.

Lily knew what I was afraid of.

She spoke up fast.

Mom, I'm okay. Besides taking my backpack and calling me his wifey, he didn't do anything else.

He didn't even touch my clothes.

I picked up the backpack and looked through it. Almost everything was still inside, except for...

I frowned. A thought had started forming, but before I could say anything, Thelma knocked on our door.

She was holding a few meal boxes, smiling from ear to ear.

I heard all about what happened at the front gate today. My son says he really likes you and wants to marry you as his wife.

Sure, you're a little small, and you're not exactly a beauty, but my son likes you, so I like you.

We don't have anything fancy at our place, so I put together a few meal boxes. Consider it the betrothal gift, my formal proposal to your family. From now on I'll supply all your family's meals.

But it can't be all coming in and nothing going out. This house of yours will have to come with her as the dowry, given to my family.

And my son moves in tomorrow. He'll take the room next to your daughter's, so they can get closer...

Lily went white with fear and darted straight back into her room.

Marcus couldn't take it either and ran for the kitchen to grab a knife. Thelma, afraid my husband was actually about to lose it, grabbed her meal boxes and bolted.

Marcus was still shouting, ready to fight it out, but I was the one who went calm and held him back.

I asked around with the previous landlord. Her son may be intellectually disabled, but he's actually gentle and sweet. He never harasses girls. He doesn't even know what a wife is.

She's only doing this to force me to give in and buy the meals!

So I've figured it out. I'm going upstairs right now to order the meals.

Marcus and Lily exchanged a look.

They both thought I was joking. Neither of them saw me as the kind of person who'd bow to bullies.

But I just smiled.

Don't worry, I'm not bowing to anyone. I'm ending this once and for all. I'm going to teach her that there's money you just can't take!

Neither of them understood, but in the end they chose to back me.

So I went and found Thelma myself.

Thelma assumed I'd come to make trouble and started working herself up again, calling for Boyd to grab a knife and protect her, muttering something about how it isn't a crime when a mentally ill person kills someone.

I quickly explained.

I'm here to order meals.

You were right. It isn't easy being a single mom, and I shouldn't have refused to work with you, shouldn't have come down on you like that.

I've come around.

Thelma thought I'd finally caved, and she was thrilled.

Exactly. We're both moms, we should be helping each other out. Why make it into a fight?

When you get down to it, we're both doing it for our kids. Since you don't trust my meals, why don't you take the eighty-eight plan? Trust me, one bite and you'll be back for more.

I rolled my eyes. What was there to come back for in pre-made meal boxes she bought online for pennies.

But I didn't say much, just shook my head.

How about this. I want to order one day of the eighty-eight first, to try it.

If it's good, I'll sign up long-term. That work?

Seeing how agreeable I was, Thelma clearly wasn't worried I'd back out, so she said nothing more, just signed the contract, and I paid on the spot.

The moment Thelma saw the money land, her eyes disappeared into her smile.

Don't you worry, I've got professional ethics. My son will never harass a customer, so you and your daughter can relax.

I didn't say much, just smiled and left.

The next evening, right at dinnertime, Thelma knocked and handed in three meal boxes, then left our home with a smug little smile on her face.

Once she'd gone back out and up the stairs.

I looked at the three meal boxes in front of me, and with a cold smile I picked up my phone.

The meals are here. The plan can begin...