Guess who!” the man replied. “Your favorite girlfriend!”
“Which one?” asked Natalya in surprise. “Irka, maybe?”
The doorbell rang again.
“I can hear you!” came a voice from the other side of the door. “Are you going to keep me waiting here much longer?”
“Not her!” the woman said, almost in tears. “Let’s just say we’re not home!”
At that moment, Dima opened the door.
“Hi there, relatives! Why did it take you so long to answer?” Alina asked Dmitry and Natalya. “Don’t close it, Dima—Denis will be up in a minute!”
Natasha closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh. “So this weekend is already ruined—again,” she thought to herself.
“Are you two planning on staying long?” Dima asked his sister.
“What’s with her?” Alina asked, ignoring his question and pointing at Natalya.
“Don’t you see? She’s delighted by your visit!” Dima replied sarcastically.
“Oh, whatever!” Alina waved him off and started taking off her coat.
A minute later, Alina’s husband Denis came into the apartment, carrying a big bag filled with something that clinked like glass. While Alina and Denis were taking off their shoes and jackets by the door, then heading to the kitchen to unpack groceries and alcohol, Natasha called Dima into the bedroom for a quick word.
“Dima, I’m really sick of your relatives—especially your sister!” said Natasha. “How long do we have to put up with this? How many times are they going to show up? It’s like every single weekend! Don’t they have anything better to do? Look, just go tell them to leave, or I will—and I won’t be polite about it!”
“And what am I supposed to do about it, Natash?” Dmitry asked. “They didn’t come here just to see me! They came to see you too, you know! So—”
“Dima, one more word out of you, and you’re leaving with them. She’s your sister, so go tell her they need to stop coming over every weekend. I’m really fed up! They’ll sit around getting drunk as usual, and after they go home, I’ll be the one cleaning up!”
Dima cast an annoyed look at his wife, stood there for a moment, then headed toward his sister.
When he got to the kitchen, about ten glass beer bottles were already on the table, along with nuts, crackers, and other snacks. Alina was busy rummaging through his fridge like she owned it.
“Oh, are you two done whispering in the other room?” his sister asked. “We’ll start without you!” she said, pulling cheese and some sliced meats out of the fridge.
Meanwhile, Denis handed Dmitry a bottle of beer.
And Dima immediately forgot why he had come to the kitchen. He reached for the bottle, but heard his wife loudly clearing her throat behind him. He drew his hand back.
“It’s for you, Alina,” said the older brother.
“I’m listening,” Alina answered, chewing on a piece of cheese she’d bitten directly off the block.
Natasha, meanwhile, was slowly but surely getting furious. She just wanted to throw Alina and her husband out of the apartment by force.
“Alina! We have plans for this weekend, so… How should I put it…” Dima began hesitantly.
“Alina, you came at a bad time,” Natalya finished for him. “So, please gather your things, grab whatever you brought with you, and head back home. We’re leaving soon!”
“Where to?” Alina immediately asked. “Maybe we’ll go with you?”
Dima figured that if such a thing were possible, steam would be shooting out of Natalya’s ears and nose. Realizing his wife was at her boiling point, he quickly grabbed the bag that his relatives had brought—the one with the beer and junk food—and started shoving everything back into it.
“What are you doing?” Denis said indignantly.
“That’s enough, guys—you heard my wife. We’re leaving soon. So please, collect your things and goodbye! And the next time you want to come over, do us the courtesy of calling first,” Dima told Alina and Denis.
“You should’ve just said from the start, ‘Pack up and get lost, you’re not welcome.’ Instead, you’re making up nonsense about having plans,” Alina grumbled.
“Alina, we really do have to go…” Dima tried to explain.
“Dima, why are you making excuses?” Natalya cut in. “Yes, you’re not welcome here. So pack up and go!” she said, addressing what she saw as a brazen pair.
“Well, aren’t you rude,” Alina said to Natalya.
“Alina,” Natalya said, trying to stay calm, “open your mouth one more time to insult me and I’ll kindly escort you through the balcony!”
“Come on, girls, let’s calm down. No fighting,” Dmitry intervened.
Denis just sat there, sipping his beer, quietly watching, not interfering.
“Tell your wife to watch her mouth!” Alina snapped at Dima.
“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?” Natasha said, beginning to lose her composure. “You barged into my home without warning, dug through my fridge like it was yours, and you have the nerve to call me rude? Get out, and don’t ever show up again!”
“Dima, are you really going to let her talk to me like that?” Alina appealed to her brother for support.
“Alina, seriously, collect your things and leave. You could’ve called first, asked if you could come. But no, you just turn up like usual, make a mess, and plan to scurry back home satisfied. Well, enough is enough!” Dima flared up. “What are you staring at? Hurry up and out!” he shouted.
Alina shot a spiteful look at her brother, snatched the bag from him, and hurriedly began gathering all the items back into it with an irritated expression. She even threw in the cheese from the fridge and the unopened meat slices.
“Hey, have you lost your mind?” Natalya marched up to the table and boldly pulled out her own groceries.
“Cheapskates!” Alina muttered.
A minute later, Alina and Denis stood in the hallway, putting on their coats, both with sour expressions on their faces.
“We won’t come here anymore! Got that?” Alina announced to the apartment’s owners. “Especially not after how we’ve been treated!”
“No one’s going to lose sleep over that,” Natalya replied. “It’s not like you were invited in the first place. You guys have made a habit of wandering around all weekend instead of staying at home—always pushing yourselves on people who didn’t invite you! You’re not scaring anyone, believe me!”
Alina turned red with anger, but her husband quickly shoved her out the door before she could say another word.
They left, muttering under their breath. As soon as Alina was out in the hallway, she started berating her husband—mostly blaming him for not letting her speak her mind and for failing to defend her.
“Wasn’t that a bit too harsh?” Dima asked Natalya. “No matter how you look at it, she’s my sister.”
“I don’t care, Dima—harsh or not. I’m sick of them treating our apartment like their own. They go through our fridge like it’s theirs, and you saw yourself—she tried to take our groceries on top of it! She’s completely lost it. I don’t want her setting foot in here again.”
“Okay, fair enough,” Dima agreed. “They’ve been annoying me more and more lately too. So, what’s our plan now?” he asked his wife.
Natalya looked at him as though to say “Really?”
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, confused. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Think, Dima. Remember what we talked about doing yesterday?”
“Oh! Right!” Dima smacked his forehead.
“Exactly. Get ready—we’re going shopping, or you’ll be stuck wearing that old down jacket for the rest of the winter! And I need to pick up a few things for myself too.”
They quickly gathered their things and headed to a nearby shopping mall.
A bit later, when Dima and Natalya returned home with their purchases, they found an unpleasant surprise on their apartment door—and next to it.
In bright red spray paint, someone had written “CHEAPSKATES” (“ЖМОТЫ”) on the door. And next to the door were empty beer bottles and discarded snack wrappers.
From the look on Natalya’s face, Dima could tell she was ready to kill his sister.
“What is this supposed to be?” Natalya exclaimed in shock. “Unbelievable! Are they fifteen years old? I’ll strangle her!”
“Calm down, Natash! Don’t worry; I’ll take care of it. Let’s just bring everything inside, and then I’ll head over there myself. I’ll make sure they both regret it. Don’t worry!”
“How can I not worry? We need to clean all this up! We don’t even have any solvent or anything!”
“They’ll clean it themselves. I promise—I’ll take care of it.”
They went inside, Dima set all the shopping bags by the door, gave his furious wife a quick peck on the cheek, and went back out.
When he arrived at his sister’s place, no one answered the doorbell. He tried calling, but neither Alina nor Denis would pick up. So Dima called their mother.
“Hi, Mom! Can you call Alina and find out where that little monster is right now?” he asked.
“They’re both here—Alina and Denis,” his mom answered. “What’s going on?”
“Alright, thanks. I’ll be over soon, but please don’t warn them I’m coming.”
“What happened? You sound upset, Dima—” his mother began, but Dima had already hung up and was racing down the stairs.
Fifteen minutes later, he was at his parents’ house. His father opened the door.
“Hey, Dad,” Dima greeted him. “They’re here, right?”
“Who? Alina and Denis?”
“Yes, them. Are they here with you?”
From the living room, Dima could hear laughter. Alina and Denis, already a bit tipsy, were watching a video on Alina’s phone and laughing at how she’d used a spray can from a nearby auto store to vandalize Dima and Natalya’s door.
When they caught sight of Dima, their laughter died.
“What was that?” he growled at them.
“Dima, what’s going on?” his mom asked.
“These rats spray-painted our door and dumped trash outside our apartment!”
“That’s what you get for kicking us out!” Alina snapped.
She promptly received a slap from her brother, wiping the smug look off her face. Denis tried to step in, but Dima warned him in just a couple of words that if he so much as moved, he’d walk away with a broken jaw at best. That was enough to cool Denis’s courage.
Dima’s mother asked again what had happened and why he’d come in so furious. He explained, from start to finish, everything that had gone on since morning.
Alina—who normally got her parents’ support—faced a torrent of scolding for her behavior. Their mother shouted at her daughter like never before. Their father even considered giving her a spanking. And Denis wasn’t spared either; he got a verbal thrashing right along with his wife. They were both dressed down like little kids, then forced to clean up the mess and apologize to Dima and Natalya.
About an hour later, Alina and her husband were standing at Dima’s door, scrubbing away at the graffiti they’d left. They squabbled at each other like two stray dogs the whole time. Dima stood over them, supervising, while his wife filmed them—two grown adults fixing their own mess.
They also apologized on camera to Natalya and Dima, picked up the trash they had left behind, and cleared it away.
After that incident, neither Alina nor Denis ever visited Dima and Natalya again, especially not without an invitation.
Alina also stayed away from their parents’ house for a while. She was deeply embarrassed, and even more upset about being scolded like a fifteen-year-old “favorite daughter.” Her father had even threatened to spank her; if not for their mother’s intervention, he probably would have.