Degrees: My Stingy Mother-in-Law Got Heatstroke

My mother-in-law was frugal to the bone, and above all she could not stand to see me enjoy anything.

I took a shower, she cut the power. I turned on the AC, she hid the remote. I put soup on to simmer, she pulled the plug. The new place I'd finished decorating, she piled full of junk.

She even smothered a whole tank of betta fish I'd raised so carefully, dead, and cost me over a hundred thousand overnight.

I lost my temper and shouted at her, and she put on that innocent, pitiful, fragile little face.

"I didn't know, I don't understand any of this. Isn't it all for the good of this family? Is it wrong to help you save a little money?"

Fine, fine, fine.

I didn't say anything. I swallowed the whole rotten mouthful of it and apologized.

The next day she climbed into someone else's smart car to grab a discarded water bottle, and the car locked remotely and trapped her inside.

The heat, well over a hundred degrees, steamed her into a panic. She slapped at the windows for all she was worth, begging passersby for help, and I stopped them.

"Oh no, you can't smash that car window! My mother-in-law's always been so thrifty. If breaking this window means she has to pay for it, that would just about kill her."

...

"Then what do we do? In this heat, it's got to be over a hundred and ten in there, a person could die!"

The security guard was hopping with panic, terrified she'd die in the area he was responsible for.

I had no idea how long she'd been shut in that car.

All I knew was that she still wouldn't let go of the bag of junk she'd been collecting.

She kept hitting the window, kept yelling at me, but the soundproofing on that smart car was so good I couldn't hear a thing.

I ignored her, and copied her own act, laying it on thick for the guard.

"You can't break it! Whatever you do, don't break this window. Whoever breaks it has to pay, and a smart car worth hundreds of thousands, one window is not cheap."

"You don't know my mother-in-law, she's famous for saving every penny. She runs the house so tight she won't spend a cent. If she found out she had to pay for a broken window, she'd rather die than live through it."

"You'd all better ease up, wait a bit longer, get the owner over to open the door. My mother-in-law still looks pretty steady to me, she can hold on a little longer!"

The moment he heard about paying, the delivery kid who'd just picked up a rock froze mid-swing.

He dropped the rock on the ground, snapped right back to his senses, and decided he didn't want to play the good samaritan anymore.

"I'm not smashing anything. I've seen this lady before, she really is a stingy penny-pincher. Once she's out, she'll probably turn around and blame me."

"You don't know, I deliver to this complex all the time, and every single time she finds some new way to squeeze money out of me. Never lets one go."

The kid gave a snort, hopped on his electric scooter, and rode off.

That left the rest of us standing around, staring at each other.

Honestly I did want to teach her a lesson, one she'd remember for a long time, but I still had to keep up appearances, so I made a show of being frantic, pacing outside the car and pestering everyone for word on the owner.

Good news: the owner had been found.

Bad news: the owner was away on a business trip.

The owner had a splitting headache too. He'd just boarded the express train, already crossed the state line, and nearly lost it when he got the call about needing to open his car door.

Before going through the ticket gate he'd remembered the door wasn't locked, so he'd locked it remotely while still in-state.

Now he was on the train, already across the state line, and the remote unlock no longer worked. It wouldn't open no matter what he tried.

He'd only just bought the car, and he wasn't willing to have a death happen in it even over one broken window, so he firmly agreed to let the guard smash the glass.

"Break it! Break it now! What's a car window compared to a person's life? You don't have to pay for the window, just save the person and save my car!"

Hearing that, the guard's mind eased, and he picked the rock back up off the ground.

Seeing this, my mother-in-law waved her hands wildly inside the car in terror, mouthing something I couldn't make out, and pointed at her own mouth.

I knew what she meant. She was saying she was hot and thirsty. But I pretended not to see, and deliberately twisted her meaning.

"Oh no! You can't break it! My mother-in-law's saying that if the glass hurts her, she'll make you pay for it!"

The crowd was furious, and someone finally started cursing out loud.

"What kind of person is she? We're all standing here trying to save her, and she's worried about compensation? Has she lost her mind over money?"

"Right? Fine if she wants to roast herself to death, but she has to do it in someone else's car? It's over a hundred and ten degrees out here and we're breaking our backs trying to save her life!"

"She's got a heart like a snake. Even if we smash the glass, she'll probably turn around and blame us. If something's wrong with her afterward, she'll say we didn't get her out in time."

"Forget it, forget it. Let her die!"

...

A few of the onlookers stormed off in anger, and the security guard didn't dare do anything more on his own, so he just called the police to handle it.

Ten-odd minutes later, the officers arrived.

By then the old woman's face was flushed a deep red, soaked through, sweat smeared all over her.

There was no water in the car, and the back window was crammed with stuffed toys and throw pillows. You could imagine how hot it was in there.

Yet even in a moment like this, she was still thinking about grabbing whatever she could.

She'd bundled those pillows against her chest and stuffed them into the bag she used for scavenging, trying to take them all home.

She hadn't spared the charms, decorations, trinkets, or air freshener up in the front seat either.

She'd even gone through the box in the armrest, taking someone else's whole pack of cotton swabs, everything clutched to her chest.

"What are you doing? Put those down, now! That's all cotton, it holds heat, don't hug it to your chest!"

The officer shouted too, frantically gesturing for her to let go, but she only shook her head and held on tighter.

Then she put on that smug, shameless little look, playing the victim with a face made for moral blackmail, trying to make all of it hers through sheer nerve.

"She's about to lose her life and she's still scrounging for scraps?"

The officer was nearly out of his mind too. He tried a few more times to talk her out of it, and got nowhere.

"This won't work. The temperature's only going up. We have to break the window, even if it means paying for it."

I walked over, wearing a troubled expression, to explain to the officer.

"You can't. My mother-in-law is a woman who saves every penny like her life depends on it, and she's got a strange temper. If you smash the glass, she'll pick a fight over every shard, and she will never let it go. I know exactly how she operates."

"And honestly, I really don't want to cause you all trouble. This is a tricky situation. How about I call my husband and have him talk to her?"

The officer agreed and told me to go call, quickly.

It took three tries before the call connected. Leon James's lazy voice came through, like he'd just woken up.

"Hello? Leon, Mom's trapped in someone else's car and the doors won't open. What do I do?"

I said it in a rush, but Leon didn't want to hear it, didn't want anything to do with it. Worse was what he said without thinking.

"Your mom's stuck in someone's car? Then go find someone else! What good does calling me do? I'm away on a business trip, what am I supposed to do?"

I froze. He thought it was my mother trapped in the car.

"But Mom's so hot she's about to pass out"

"There's nothing I can do about that either, calling me is useless, figure it out yourself! I refuse to believe there's a car door that can't be opened. If all else fails, why don't you just smash it?"

Leon laughed at me, mocking, and couldn't resist a couple of jabs.

"You come to me over a little thing like this with your mom? I'm only her son-in-law, not her real son. No need to drag me into every single thing! And let me be clear up front: if you break the car, don't come asking me to pay. My means are limited, and I don't want to pay."

"Look at my mother. Day in and day out she scrimps and saves at home, won't even turn on the air conditioning, all for the good of the two of us. Your mother should be even less inclined to cause us trouble."

With a single beep, Leon hung up. I called again; he wouldn't pick up. I sent a message; he wouldn't answer.

It took this one phone call to finally show me the truth. Leon and his mother were cut from exactly the same cloth.

We'd met through a matchmaking setup. Eight months of easy dating, then a happy wedding. Everything had gone smoothly. We'd never once had a fight.

Leon's family bought the apartment, I paid for the renovations, so I brought no dowry money of my own into the marriage.

Leon accepted that quietly, but he had one condition: his mother would live with us.

I didn't object. I agreed without a fuss, because before the wedding they'd both played the part of honest, decent people, charmed me completely, and treated me wonderfully.

The second month after the wedding, Leon started traveling for work constantly.

His mother began letting her stingy, grasping nature show, too. Her attitude toward me wasn't as friendly as before, and she loved to nitpick over nothing.

I sensed something was off and brought it up with Leon a few times. He'd smooth it over, say he'd handle it, and then find another excuse to leave on a business trip.

By the time he came back three or five days later, the matter had quietly faded away. If I raised it again, he'd say I was being petty, and his mother would seize the opening to do it all over again.

That was when it hit me. So the two of them had been acting the whole time before the wedding, and once we were married they didn't want to keep up the pretense. Step by step, they were running an obedience test on me.

But what they didn't know was that I'm not some soft persimmon anyone can squeeze.

After hanging up on Leon, I put on the old woman's act myself, playing pitiful and helpless, and went crying to the officers that this couldn't be resolved.

"Officer, I'm so sorry, my husband's away on a business trip too, he can't deal with this. Otherwise let me call a locksmith and see if there's a way to save the car."

"You can't even handle something this small? Which matters more, a life or a pane of glass?"

"There's nothing I can do. Please understand, officer. I'm not the one who makes decisions in this family. Everything has to go through my husband."

"Ugh!"

The officer let out a sigh. There was nothing he could do but tell me to hurry up and get it sorted.

Meanwhile, security brought over a few buckets of water and poured them over the car, but it barely helped. The moisture just evaporated.

My mother-in-law was sweating even harder now, her face red as a pumpkin, her hair plastered to it with sweat.

She kept waving at me, mopping frantically at her face to show how hot she was, fanning herself with her hand and sticking out her tongue to show how thirsty she was.

After all that flailing, her face went redder, her eyes went glassy, and she looked drenched, like she was in a sauna.

Even so, she wouldn't let go. She kept those throw pillows and stuffed toys clutched tight against her chest.

Before long the locksmith arrived, tried a few times, and threw up his hands.

"No good! This is a smart car, the door handles are the hidden kind. I can't get it open."

"The only option now is to break a window, or go in through the sunroof. You should check which piece of glass is cheapest to replace before you decide."

I played it up like I was going frantic, got a sheet of paper from security, wrote a line on it, and stuck it to the car window for my mother-in-law to see.

"We're going to break the glass to get you out. Move back a little!"

She glanced at it, gave a feeble wave of her hand, and still wouldn't agree.

The truth was, only I knew it: my mother-in-law couldn't read at all.

"It's no use, my mother-in-law still won't agree. She keeps waving me off. She just can't bear to pay for the glass."

"Is this really happening? At a time like this, she's still worried about paying for it? Her life's about to be gone!"

The officer slapped his thigh in frustration and took the note over to gesture through it himself, but she just kept waving her hand, until he was left helpless and furious too.

The minutes ticked by, and it was the hottest part of the noon.

The outdoor temperature had already hit a hundred and ten degrees, never mind inside the car. My mother-in-law was so hot she looked about to evaporate.

She couldn't hold out much longer. Her body, drained by the heat, actually started leaking a nosebleed.

Soon she lost consciousness, sinking down limp and dazed onto the back seat.

With no time left to waste, the officers made the call and grabbed a window-breaker to smash the glass, telling me to film the whole thing on video.

"I'm the one who broke the glass. If there's a problem, come to me. Saving her comes first, we can't waste any more time!"

Bang

A dull crack, and the car window shattered.

The door finally opened.

The mother-in-law had already lost consciousness, her eyes glazed as she slipped under.

But her hands still gripped the bag of scavenged junk, and it was jammed in the doorway, stuck, refusing to go in or out.

A security guard cursed her under his breath, sighing the whole time, then fetched scissors and cut the bag away.

Everyone pitched in, drenched in sweat, and only just managed to haul her out of the car and rush her to the hospital.

She'd been in that car too long, and her heart had never been strong to begin with. The moment they got her into the emergency room, her breathing stopped several times.

Only after resuscitation did her heartbeat slowly come back, but she was still in bad shape.

"Too much time was lost. Her body temperature is up to a hundred and six. This is heatstroke. On top of that, she has some underlying conditions. She has to be moved to the ICU. You need to pay and complete the admission right away."

I'd heard about heatstroke every summer, but this was the first time it had happened to someone near me.

I couldn't make up my mind either, so I went off again to call Leon.

His phone never connected on the first try for me. I called many times before he finally picked up, and when he did his voice was edged with irritation as he asked what I wanted.

"Leon, Mom's in a really bad way. She has to go to the ICU right now, and I have to pay and get her admitted. I don't have that much cash on hand, it all went into the renovation. Can you transfer me some first?"

"Ha."

Leon let out a cold laugh, and any pretense between us was finished.

"Back then you said you wanted to renovate the place. I told you a basic job was fine, but you wouldn't listen. Now something like this happens and you want me to pay? I can hear your scheming all the way from out here!"

"Leon, how can you talk like that? You weren't like this before we married, and now you say things like this? Besides, if your mother hadn't secretly pulled the oxygen line out of my fish tank, those fish of mine would've sold for over a hundred thousand"

"Enough, enough, stop it. I don't have that kind of money. Figure it out yourself! I've got a meeting. Don't call me again."

"So what you mean is give up on treatment? Not save her?"

"Do whatever you want, it's up to you. It's got nothing to do with me!"

Before I could get another word in, he hung up first again.

Even now he still thought it was my mother in the hospital being resuscitated, and the moment I brought up his own mother's fault, he dodged the subject entirely, not caring in the slightest what kind of miserable life I'd been living.

Fine. Then I wouldn't leave any room for it either. I walked straight to the doctor's office and asked to withdraw treatment.

"We won't treat her. I just called my husband, and he's the one who said to give up on treatment, that it's got nothing to do with him! He won't even save his own mother, so there's nothing I can do."

"You're not saving her?"

The doctor was stunned too, and tried to talk me out of it.

"This heatstroke of hers can still be treated. Get her into the ICU on the machines and there's no problem at all keeping her alive!"

"No. We won't treat her. My husband won't agree to it."

My tone was firm, and I said it as though my hands were tied.

The mother-in-law on the resuscitation bed seemed to have heard it. She jolted, overcome, and the heart monitor suddenly let out a shrill, blaring alarm.

Beep beep beep