My older sister sold me her old car for a symbolic amount. It hadn’t run in ages, with flat tires and rust under the hood. But she made a big deal out of gifting it to me.
Knowing my way around cars, I invested $5,000 to upgrade everything—new interior, fresh paint, new tires, and wheels. I was thrilled with the result.
One morning, as I was about to leave for university, my sister stormed in, DEMANDING THE CAR BACK. I was shocked. She claimed her husband’s car had broken down, and since she hadn’t sent the sale documents, the car was still legally hers. She said she had changed her mind.
My parents sided with her, arguing that she needed the car for her kids. My first thought was to call the police, but then I had a better idea.
I decided to teach her a lesson she wouldn’t forget. I went to my friend’s auto repair shop and borrowed his tools. That evening, I worked late into the night, carefully undoing all the upgrades I had done to the car. I removed the new tires and wheels, put back the old, flat ones, and replaced the shiny new interior with the old, torn-up seats. I drained the fluids and took out the new battery.
By the time I was done, the car looked just like it had when she first gave it to me—an unusable hunk of junk.
The next morning, I called my sister and told her she could come and pick up the car. She arrived with her husband, smirking as she handed me the old keys. But her smile quickly faded when she saw the car.
“What did you do?” she screeched, her face turning red.
“I just returned it to its original state,” I said calmly. “The upgrades were my investment. You didn’t buy those, remember?”
She looked furious but couldn’t argue with me. The car was legally hers, but I had simply undone my improvements. My parents tried to intervene, but I stood my ground.
My sister had no choice but to take the car as it was. She and her husband struggled to push it onto a tow truck, and I watched them drive away with a sense of satisfaction.
A few days later, I heard through the grapevine that she had to spend a fortune fixing up the car to make it usable again. I felt a bit bad for my nephews, but I knew she needed to learn that she couldn’t just take advantage of people like that.
Weeks passed, and I focused on my studies and part-time job. Then, out of the blue, my sister called me. She apologized for her behavior and admitted she had been wrong to demand the car back after I had put so much work into it. She even offered to help me buy a new car.
I accepted her apology but declined her offer. The lesson had been learned, and our relationship slowly began to mend. I knew we would never be as close as we once were, but at least there was mutual respect. And from then on, she thought twice before trying to take advantage of anyone, especially her family.