The best revenge story I know of is not something I heard. It’s something I did.

Now, I will admit this is one of the most passive-aggressive acts ever.

It was also completely satisfying and totally deserved! Let me explain.

My dad’s wife is a complete piece of work. It’s not just me. In the 30+ years I’ve had to deal with her I’ve never met anyone who had anything good to say about her. She is the kind of person who will absolutely run over anyone or anything to get what she wants-and she wants everything! To say she lacks scruples would be an understatement. She also has a really nasty temper. What’s not to love?

It came to pass that my grandmother, who had spent the previous year in a nursing home trying to recover from a brain stem stroke, went to live with my dad and his wife.

EVERYONE in the family, including her, was against the idea of bringing my grandmother home from the start. We loved her dearly but she would require 24 hour care. My dad was insistent, first putting pressure on me to do it, then his wife. I don’t know exactly what happened but, after months of refusal, overnight she completely changed her attitude. I know my dad and I know her. He promised her something. Something big. This is not a woman who has ever acted benevolently in her life. And I have no doubt my dad reneged after the deal was done.

Not surprisingly it turned out badly. After a brief honeymoon period my dad's wife’s anger and resentment began to pour out. There’s a long list of shitty things she did to my grandmother but this is the one that prompted the revenge.

One of the things my grandmother loved was her perfume. She’d worn Estée Lauder's “"Youth Dew” since it was first introduced. It was sort of a family joke. It was the gift she requested for about every birthday I can remember. That smell is so ingrained in my memories of her that experiencing it now is like a flashback.

My dad’s wife decided that the perfume was too heavy. That made no sense. She had always been one to put her own perfume on fairly thickly and she wore both “Opium” and, appropriately, “Poison”. Who was she to decide that anyway? Like so many of her actions, it was about power and control.

She threw out my grandmothers perfume (I kept some for her for when she stayed with us) and replaced it with some kind of bath splash from Victoria's Secret.

It made my grandmother so sad. Such a little thing. A bottle of perfume. A small happiness in a life that had been robbed of so much. Taking it away was just mean. So petty, so selfish.

My grandmother passed, back in the nursing home, in 2010.

Flash forward to 2015. Our daughter, my grandmothers BABY, was getting married. I had decided to wear my grandmothers perfume and some of her jewelry in her honor. We were arranging the corsages for the grandmothers when a supremely devilish idea occurred to me.

Shortly before she arrived for the pictures I took my dad’s wife’s corsage and LOADED it with Estée Lauder Youth Dew perfume.

The look on her face as she was standing for pictures was PRICELESS! She was forced to literally smell my grandmother all night long!

To paraphrase Chris Rock; That’s right! I did it!

And I’m not a bit sorry!