Her face twisted in annoyance. “That’s not funny.”
I shrugged. “I thought it was.”
She rolled her eyes and stomped back to her room. A few minutes later, I heard her slamming doors, probably trying to reset the router.
It didn’t work. I had changed the admin settings too.
The second step was the groceries.
For years, Lisa had treated my fridge like an all-you-can-eat buffet. She never asked, never contributed, just ate whatever she wanted and left the mess for me to clean up.
So I stopped buying extra food.
I started labeling things clearly: Emily’s lunch. Emily’s snacks. Emily’s groceries. Do not touch.
Every time I went shopping, I only bought what I needed. Nothing extra. Nothing to share.
It didn’t take long for Lisa to notice.
“Uh, did you forget to buy food?” she asked one evening, standing in front of the nearly empty fridge.
I looked up from my book. “Nope. I got everything I needed.”
She scoffed. “Well, what about me?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You have a job, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Then you can buy your own groceries,” I said simply, turning the page.
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish. “Wow. Okay. Petty much?”
“Petty?” I repeated, laughing. “Lisa, I’ve been feeding you for years for free. I just figured since you’re an adult, you’d want to start taking care of yourself.”
She huffed but didn’t argue further.
Instead, she started ordering takeout. A lot of takeout, which was perfect because that meant she was spending her own money, and soon enough she wouldn’t have anything left.
The third step: utilities.
I changed online subscription passwords one by one. I cut her off from every single subscription she had been mooching off me.
She finally snapped when she tried to watch a movie one night and got the login screen.
“Seriously?” she yelled from the living room. “Why can’t I get into anything?”
I walked in casually, pretending to be surprised. “Oh, yeah. I figured since you don’t contribute, I should only be paying for myself.”