From this day on, you’ll eat outside!” Dasha couldn’t stand the pushiness of the rude relatives any longer.
“Dasha, come on, what are you doing?” her husband Mikhail tried to calm her down.
“I’ve said my piece! Period!”
Finally, summer had come to the city. The forecast promised a heatwave for the May holidays, and Dasha was already planning what to take to the dacha.
She spent the whole morning looking for a swimsuit and a straw hat. In the end, she got upset and decided it would be easier to order new ones than to waste precious time.
The next unpleasant surprise was expired sunscreen.
“Alright, I’ll add that to the cart too,” she thought angrily.
In the afternoon, her husband called.
“How’s the packing going?”
“It’s just one big disaster!” Dasha complained.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t worry about it. To put it simply — half I couldn’t find, and half is expired.” Dasha laughed at the situation herself.
“Well, if you’re laughing, then everything’s fine! By the way, the relatives were calling. They want to come for the May holidays.”
Dasha grew wary. She honestly didn’t like these visits.
Mikhail’s relatives came from the region. They squeezed into a small apartment there and spent the entire summer working in their garden plot in the local gardening cooperative (SNT). Resting there was out of the question since the plot was used exclusively for growing everything that could later be eaten. However, there was a small building with a summer kitchen on the plot, which served as the gathering point whenever the relatives got together to grill shashlik.
Dasha and Misha’s place was much more comfortable for relaxing. Dasha’s grandmother’s house was large and spacious, the yard beautiful with conifers and flowers. A real pleasure to look at. And the refreshments the young couple provided were plentiful. They bought good wine, not that watery stuff from plastic bags.
The meat was always marinated generously, just in case friends dropped by. Vegetables and fruits — all in a variety.
So Mikhail’s relatives, without any hesitation, often came to visit uninvited.
But what especially annoyed Dasha after their visits was the amount of damage left behind.
They were always dropping, tearing, and staining something.
They ate strangely too. Stuffing their mouths, choking, dropping crumbs everywhere, and dirtying everything around with greasy, ketchup-covered hands.
Instead of resting, Dasha had to spend several days cleaning, washing, and fixing things. So for her, their visits were not a formality but a full-blown disaster.
“Mish, again?” Dasha asked anxiously.
“Come on, they’ll just stop by, sit for an hour, and leave. They’ve got tons to do over the May holidays — cleaning, planting, digging… all the usual dacha chores,” her husband reassured her.
“Well, if that’s the case, then okay.” But Dasha couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling.
“Why don’t I see any smoke? Haven’t you started the coals yet?” Aunt Tamara asked in surprise.
She was coming from the gate with two large bags. Following her was skinny Uncle Kolya, who liked to drink when Aunt Tamara wasn’t looking. They had brought their grown children: son Lyonya and daughter-in-law Lena. Lena resembled Aunt Toma somewhat — large, loud-voiced, and with flushed cheeks. Lyonya was like his father — thin and taciturn.
“We thought you wouldn’t be staying long, so no shashlik,” Dasha replied timidly.
“No way. We always find time for our relatives. Hello, Dasha,” Aunt Toma roughly hugged the girl with one arm, handing one of the bags to her daughter-in-law, “Where’s Mishka?”
“He’s making tea, he’ll be here soon.”
“Tea?” Uncle Kolya asked disappointedly, “Don’t you have anything stronger?”
“I don’t know, we didn’t bring anything.”
“No worries, give me a thousand rubles, I’ll run to the local store!” the relative exclaimed.
“Kolya,” Aunt Toma hissed.
“What’s up, Kolya? It’s the May holidays! Lyonya, come with me.”
“I don’t have cash…” Dasha mumbled helplessly, but her husband came to the rescue.
“Hi everyone! What’s the argument about?”
“Kolya’s worried there’s nothing to drink! Hi, dear!” Aunt Toma hugged her nephew.
“I’ve still got some from last time,” Misha said.
“Now that’s a festive atmosphere,” Uncle Kolya rubbed his hands happily. “Lyonya, let’s go have a drink!”
“Let’s put the shashlik on first!” Aunt Toma ordered. “Mish, why didn’t you prepare the coals?”
“I didn’t know you’d stay long.”
“Hurry up, and you guys start threading the meat! Dasha, bring the meat. Lena, grab vegetables and fruits from their fridge, wash and cut them.”
Aunt Toma was handing out orders left and right while Dasha quietly stood behind her, watching strangers empty the refrigerator.
When the meat was ready, a light rain began to fall unexpectedly.
To Uncle Kolya’s great joy, it was decided to move indoors where the precious leftover alcoholic drinks were kept.
Dasha covered the table with a tablecloth, and the women brought plates of food inside.
Dasha had specially bought a big pack of napkins so the relatives would have something to clean up after themselves with, but they economized on the host’s napkins. Aunt Toma held onto the tablecloth with greasy meat-covered hands, and Uncle Kolya heartily snacked on white cheese with fresh tomatoes, spraying droplets all over the kitchen.
“Oh, I need a plate for the fruit.” Dasha lost her vigilance and didn’t manage to stop Lenka when she dug into the antique porcelain cabinet with greasy hands and broke a plate, which slipped from her fingers. “Phew, good thing it was an old one,” Lena breathed a sigh of relief.
“That’s my great-grandmother’s set. It survived the revolution and two wars, and the first plate got damaged by such a clumsy cow!” Dasha shouted angrily.
“What’s wrong with you?” Lena protested, “So what if some old stuff got broken? It belongs in the trash anyway. You should be thankful we’re helping you declutter. At our place, we have a Czechoslovakian set — now that’s something! Everything good was made in Soviet times!” she declared with a connoisseur’s air.
“Come on, Dasha, why get so worked up?” Aunt Toma splattered meat juice on the table and carefully wiped her lipstick-stained mouth on the pristine tablecloth’s edge.
Uncle Kolya and Lyonya kept clinking glasses, pouring some of the drinks into plates.
“From this day on, you’ll eat outside!” Dasha couldn’t tolerate the piggish attitude toward herself, her home, her property, and her finances anymore, because all the relatives had brought were those two bags containing dried bay leaf brooms.
“Dasha, what’s wrong?” Misha asked.
“I’ve said it all! Hurry up!”
Frightened, Uncle Kolya was the first to grab the opened bottle and shuffled out to the porch. Lyonya slipped out right after him.
Tamara and Lena left last, taking their plates with leftover food.
While cleaning up the remains of the meal, the relatives discussed the niece-in-law’s action:
“We didn’t expect Dasha to fight back, thought she was a pushover,” the relatives said sincerely surprised.
“Yeah, you can take advantage of people like that forever,” said Lena. “Look how she snapped!”
“Alright, if we’re not welcome here, we’re leaving,” Aunt Toma commanded.
Dasha took out the containers with food.
“Take it, I’ve lost my appetite anyway.”
“We’ll gladly take it.” Lena emptied the bags with the bay leaf brooms right onto the wet grass and placed the containers on top.
While everyone was making noise, Uncle Kolya shoved the bottle down his pants behind his back and covered it with his shirt tail. Dasha noticed but didn’t show it. The main thing was for them to leave as soon as possible.
“That was something!” Mikhail said after everyone had left.
“Sorry, but it was inevitable! I’d been itching to tell them off for a long time, and the great-grandmother’s plate was the last straw. That set is valuable on its own, plus it means a lot to me as a keepsake.”
The couple returned to the house.
“Just look at the tablecloth!”
“Yeah, what a pigsty they made…”
“Exactly what I’m saying. And it’s like this every time. Why did we even keep in touch with them?”
“I don’t know… like family or something,” Mikhail shrugged thoughtfully.
“I hope they won’t want to come visit us anymore…”
Dasha crumpled the dirty tablecloth and threw it straight into the trash bin on the porch.