My Daughter-in-Law Called AC Wasteful,So I Gave Her the Eco Life She Wanted

My daughter-in-law was an environmentalist with two sets of rules.

She wasted everything in sight, then turned around and lectured me for running the AC at seventy-seven degrees.

"Turning on the AC just moves the heat from inside the house to outside. It does nothing but wreck the environment."

"You ruin the home of every generation that comes after you, just so you can be cool for one afternoon. You don't deserve to call yourself a person."

I was furious.

But my son tugged at my arm, his face full of pleading, begging me to just let it go.

"The AC isn't only bad for the planet. It'll make you sick, too. We're saying this for your own good."

I swallowed my anger and went back to my room, and she called that my silent protest.

To teach me my mistake.

And to remind me who ran this house.

At the hottest point of the day, she used her phone to shut off the AC and lock the electronic door from the outside.

The heat gave me a stroke, and I stopped breathing before the ambulance ever arrived.

Only after I was dead did my daughter-in-law put on her little act, apologizing, saying she never meant for it to happen.

My son knew the truth, and he still comforted her, telling her not to blame herself.

"If she weren't so dependent on the AC, how could she drop dead the second it went off?"

"It's bad enough she died. Now she's dragged down the value of our house on top of it. So really, the one at fault is her."

I got a second chance.

And this time I didn't argue with my daughter-in-law, because I decided I wanted to be exactly like her, a radical two-faced eco-warrior...

One:

"Mom, it's not that I'm cheap about the electric bill. That's not why I won't let you run the AC."

"Don't believe me? Go look at the news from overseas. They don't have AC at all, because those people love the earth, they love the planet."

"You're just an old woman. You really think you're wiser than the scholars over there?"

...

Belinda Walker went on and on, spit flying.

She'd been exactly like this in my last life, preaching about the environment when all she really couldn't stand was me home alone with the AC on, napping through the afternoon.

Back then I held my tongue, for my son Alden Fox's sake.

After all, I understood better than anyone that Belinda's so-called environmental standards applied to one person only. Me.

She used disposable everything, left the water running while she washed her hands and face and brushed her teeth, and kept the AC at sixty degrees whether she was at the office or at home...

So I chose to do as I pleased. When I wanted the AC on, I turned it on.

But Belinda watched the security feed from work, spotted me "sneaking the AC on" in an instant, and shut off both the AC and the electronic lock by remote. I couldn't turn the AC back on, and I couldn't get out of the house.

Angry, panicked, and burning up, I went into heatstroke fast. My whole body stopped moving, and I couldn't even reach my phone to call for help.

I was still foolish enough to think the AC and the door had both broken at the same time, so I dragged myself toward the camera to beg for help. And the next second, I heard Belinda laughing through it.

"There's no malfunction. I shut it all off on purpose."

"The heat your AC pumps out every day is exactly what scorches Mother Earth. Today I'm letting you feel what Mother Earth feels."

I was half dead with rage.

But to stay alive, I swore to her I'd go green from now on, that I'd never run the AC again.

Belinda didn't believe a word of it. She just said, if I'd known it would come to this, why hadn't I acted differently from the start?

By the time Alden finally found me unconscious and called an ambulance, it was already too late. And my dear son, even after I died, didn't blame Belinda at all. He was only angry that I'd dragged down the value of the house...

Thinking of all this.

I forced my anger down, picked up the remote beside me, and switched off the AC right in front of them.

Then I let a mocking smile spread across my face.

"Fine."

"I won't run the AC anymore. I'll learn from Belinda and be an eco-warrior too."