Lisa worked tirelessly to afford a dream trip to Maui, only for her husband, Wade, to give her ticket to his mommy instead. Stunned but seething, Lisa starts planning the ultimate payback — one that will ensure his vacation is unforgettable for all the wrong reasons.
I stared at the Maui resort website, my cursor hovering over the “Book Now” button like it was the detonator to a happiness bomb.
A woman staring thoughtfully at her laptop screen | Source: Midjourney
The photos showed pristine beaches, infinity pools, and those little umbrellas in coconut drinks that screamed “vacation.”
After a year of endless work and juggling the kids’ schedules with the precision of a circus performer, I needed this break like a caffeine addict needs their morning coffee.
I let out a sigh of relief as I clicked the button. The confirmation page popped up with a cheerful ding, and I let loose with a little victorious air punch. I was finally getting my dream vacation!
A happy woman looking at a laptop screen | Source: Midjourney
Wade and I had agreed to split the cost fifty-fifty. I’d convinced him we needed a real vacation in January and had been working hard to make it happen all year.
I’d planned everything down to the minute: beachfront resort, sunset sail, snorkeling with sea turtles. I even scheduled in “spontaneous” relaxation time, because that’s the kind of control freak I’d become.
The kids were thrilled about staying with my sister, Jane, for the week we’d be away.
Happy siblings on a sofa | Source: Midjourney
“Mom,” my 13-year-old Emma had said, “Aunt Jane said she’ll give us ice cream for breakfast!”
I pretended to be scandalized, but honestly, Jane could feed them moon rocks for all I cared. This vacation was my light at the end of a very long, very dark, very exhausting tunnel.
One week before our flight, all my dreams of relaxing on the beach came crashing down around me.
A woman with a serious expression | Source: Midjourney
Wade’s mom was coming for dinner, so I was in the kitchen dishing up her special lasagna. She’d given me the recipe a year ago with great fanfare, like she was conveying a great honor. It was just regular lasagna with extra garlic and oregano.
I heard the front door open, and my mother-in-law’s distinctive perfume arrived about three seconds before she did.
“Something smells wonderful!” Carol’s voice carried through the house like a foghorn of impending doom.
A woman striding down a home corridor | Source: Midjourney
She swept into the kitchen, designer purse swinging from her arm like a weapon. She scanned the kitchen, frowned, and then leaned out into the hall.
“Wade, honey, your wife is plating dinner already. Why aren’t you here to welcome me?”
I bit my tongue so hard that I probably needed stitches.
“Sorry, Mom, I was packing a few things. We’ve got some exciting news,” Wade announced as he bounded into the room like an overeager golden retriever. “We booked a trip to Maui!”
Carol’s face lit up like a Christmas tree on steroids.
A mature woman grinning in a kitchen | Source: Midjourney
“Oh, sweetie! You’re so wonderful for planning such a lovely vacation.” She turned to me with a dismissive glance that could have frozen Hawaii itself. “You’re lucky to have my Wade. He’s always been such a caring soul.”
“Actually,” I started to say, “I was the one who—”
“You know,” Carol interrupted, sinking into a kitchen chair with a dramatic sigh worthy of a soap opera, “I’ve been so exhausted lately. Retirement isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. All those bridge club meetings, and my garden needs so much attention…”
A mature woman sitting at a table | Source: Midjourney
I turned away so Carol wouldn’t see me roll my eyes. She’d never once offered to watch the kids during their various illnesses, school events, or even that time I had the flu and was hallucinating that the kitchen sponge was giving me financial advice.
But somehow her life was always so hard… yeah, right. Carol was just one of those people who thought having life problems was a competitive sport.
I suppressed a sigh as we all sat down to eat.
A plate of lasagna on a table | Source: Pexels
Carol droned on about how exhausted she was and how much she wished she could also enjoy a “fancy getaway.”
I just nodded occasionally and tried not to groan, but Wade was drinking it all up.
Toward the end of dinner, Wade cleared his throat and turned to me.
“Hey, honey, I was thinking…”
He had that look again, the one that meant I should probably start looking up countries with no extradition treaties.
“Why don’t you let Mom take your ticket?”
A man speaking to someone during dinner | Source: Midjourney
I nearly choked on my garlic bread.
“Wade,” I said carefully, my voice shaking with the restraint of a saint, “I worked my butt off all year to save for this trip. I’m exhausted. I need this break more than I need oxygen right now.”
He shrugged, like I was complaining about the weather instead of the grand theft of my sanity vacation.
“A lot of women work these days,” he said. “It’s your choice. But you heard my mom… she could really use a break. Don’t make this a big deal.”
A man speaking during dinner at home | Source: Midjourney
“I worked my whole life for my son and never complained,” Carol chimed in, dabbing at nonexistent tears with her perfectly manicured fingers.
I looked at Wade, really looked at him, and something inside me snapped like a rubber band that had been stretched way too far. Six years of marriage crystallized into perfect clarity.
This wasn’t about the vacation. This was about every birthday dinner he’d insisted we spend with his mother, every decision that somehow always ended with Carol getting her way, and how she still called Wade her “precious baby boy” even though he was in his 30s.
Close up of a woman staring ahead with wide eyes | Source: Midjourney
I forced my lips into a smile. “Sure, Wade. Take your mom. I’ll figure something else out.”
They both beamed, thinking they’d won. But I was already planning my revenge, and it was going to be more satisfying than all the spa treatments in Hawaii combined.
Over the next few days, I became very busy with my laptop, cackling like a witch over her cauldron.
The five-star resort? Downgraded to a budget hotel miles from the beach, with one queen bed and a mysterious stain on the carpet that the reviews said might be sentient.
A woman cackling while using her laptop | Source: Midjourney
The sunset sail and snorkeling? Canceled faster than a bad Netflix series. Instead, I booked them fascinating activities like “The History of Pineapple Farming: A Four-Hour Lecture Series” and “Traditional Hat Weaving: A Five-Hour Workshop with Bonus Meditation.”
Their first-class flights became economy middle seats, separated by three rows, right next to the bathrooms.
But that wasn’t all I had planned.
A woman smirking while using her laptop | Source: Midjourney
I also found a lawyer and filed for divorce.
By the time Wade left for the airport, I was ready to move forward with the next stage. I packed his things into suitcases and lined them up in the hallway like soldiers of liberation. The note I left took only minutes to write, but I’d been composing it in my head for days.
Dear Wade,
In these suitcases, you’ll find all your belongings — well, at least the ones worth keeping. I need a break, not just from our “marriage,” but from your mom’s constant meddling and your eternal cluelessness.
Feel free to unpack at her place. I’m sure she’ll love having her little boy back full-time.
Best wishes,
Your ex-wife
Suitcases in an entrance hall | Source: Pexels
Then I treated myself to some online shopping: one ticket for a luxury Mediterranean cruise. The refunds from all those canceled Maui activities more than covered it.
I was folding clothes into my suitcase, practicing my “lounging on deck” pose, when my phone exploded with Wade’s ringtone.
“WHAT DID YOU DO?!” His voice cracked with fury. “It’s so selfish! This hotel is a dump, and the flight was a nightmare!”
A smug woman on a phone call | Source: Midjourney
“Oh, I thought you’d love it! A nice quiet room, some quality mother-son bonding over hat weaving… But wait until you see the surprise I arranged for when you get back.”
“What surprise? Lisa? LISA!”
I hung up, smiling like the cat who not only got the cream but also started a successful dairy company. The divorce papers were scheduled for delivery to Carol’s house the day they returned.
By then, I’d be somewhere off the Italian coast, eating authentic pasta and sipping champagne.
A cruise ship close to land | Source: Pexels
A few months have passed since all of this happened. The divorce was finalized smoothly and these days, I’m happily single and planning my next adventure to Disney World with the kids.
Wade is still living with his mommy, and from the sounds of things, has no plans to move out anytime soon. The kids visit him every second weekend, and I make sure to smile and wave whenever I see Carol.
Once, I even got to ask if she enjoyed her hat-weaving workshop.
A woman standing beside her car waving her hand | Source: Midjourney
Sometimes the best vacations are the ones you take by yourself — especially when they lead you exactly where you need to be.
And sometimes, the sweetest revenge isn’t served cold: it’s a pineapple farming lecture with a side of hat weaving.
Paul Newman’s brutally honest words – he once confessed what he really thought of Robert Redford
Although the real-life outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were close, actor Paul Newman admitted that he harbored some grudges against the young Robert Redford throughout the period of filming.
A true testament to their acting prowess, Redford as Harry Longabaugh, aka “Sundance Kid,” and Newman as Robert LeRoy Parker, aka “Butch Cassidy,” were convincing in their portrayals of the Wild West friends, notorious criminals who were eluding the law after a string of bank and train robberies.
The 1969 film, which was based on the actual outlaws, won four Oscars and is still regarded as one of the best Westerns ever produced. Four years later, in The Sting (1973), another caper movie starring two similarly attractive heartthrobs, the stars reunited.
Legends in their own right, Newman and Redford worked their magic when they were together. However, have you ever wondered how Hollywood’s A-listers get along away from the camera?When he was 44 years old, Newman, who portrayed Butch, admitted that he had been interested in the 33-year-old Redford’s 33-year-old character.
In a BBC Talking Pictures interview, Newman noted, “We have a lot of fun together, and we bounce off each other really well.” I would have wanted to play Sundance, he continued. With that cooled-out quality, I feel a little more at ease. It must be the simpler part, I suppose.
Redford was a budding star who won the Golden Globe for New Star of the Year in 1965 for his work with Natalie Wood in the movie Inside Daisy Clover.
After appearing in movies like Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) with Elizabeth Taylor, Newman had already achieved superstardom.
Redford was cast opposite Newman, who was winning acting and directing accolades, in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid after Steve McQueen turned down a role in the film. McQueen also declined parts in Dirty Harry, The French Connection, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
The two celebrities weren’t truly friends at the time, according to Newman’s memoir, “The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir,” the BBC reports.
Newman said, “You can’t depend on Redford. You’re never sure he’s going to be there. That’s simply discourteous.”
Their differences in working styles, according to Newman’s youngest daughter Claire Newman Soderlund, whom he fathered with his second wife Joanne Woodward, may have contributed to their conflicts.
She said, “My father was very much a stickler for timeliness and Bob, that was never really his strength. It was hard work for dad. He worked very hard at it because he wanted to be good and he wanted to be successful and Bob was more of a free spirit.”
When Newman passed away from lung cancer in 2008, Redford, who is now 86, told ABC News that, “It was just that connection of playing those characters and the fun of it that really began the relationship,” he said, reflecting on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. “And then once the film started, once we went forward, we then discovered other similarities that just multiplied over time, a common ground that we both had between us, interests and so forth, and differences.”
Newman and Redford looked into possibilities to collaborate on a third movie after portraying renowned outlaws and later thieves in The Sting, but it never materialized.
In Bill Bryson’s 1998 book of the same name, A Walk in the Woods, which was adapted into a 2015 movie, it almost happened. The plot of this buddy movie centers on two elderly guys who are out of shape and want to hike the challenging Appalachian Trail.
In 2005, Redford, who both appeared in and produced the movie, chose this script with his close friend Newman in mind.
In 2015, Redford said, “It started with Paul, because Paul and I had been looking for a third film to do together. A lot of time had gone by, and I just couldn’t find it. When I read this book… I thought of Paul right away.”
Redford, who was 79 at the time of the interview, claimed that he sent the book to Newman, who later cast Nick Nolte in the part because he wasn’t sure he could do it physically.
Since they initially worked together on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the relationship between Newman and Redford, two highly regarded performers, has significantly deepened. The performers, who lived in Connecticut just a mile apart and started to act like brothers, are also close with their families.
Speaking after his buddy died, Redford said, “We both got to know each other’s flaws pretty well. Of course, I outweighed him on that front. But knowing each other’s flaws, we just played them to the hilt and we’d try to trick each other. We’d try to surprise each other, and it was so damn much fun that it became like–it became like a scenario unto itself.”
He added, “Paul really likes to have fun and he loves to laugh and he really especially loves to laugh at his own jokes, and some of them are just really awful. So the fact that he enjoyed them so much, you forget about the joke and you’d start to laugh with him because you’re so caught up in his enjoyment of them.”
Paul Newman and Robert Redford had such a great chemistry! Let us know what you think of their on-screen friendship and real-life romance!
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