When I moved in with my girlfriend, everything was great. We had each other's perpetual company, space for ourselves, and best of all: isolation and freedom.

After a few months, we started getting surprise visits from her parents. They would wake us up by pounding on the door, or sometimes even barge in. Sometimes it was just her mother and father, other times they brought their 5 year old daughter. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy spending time with my girlfriend’s sister and even her parents. But these visits were unexpected, untimely, and were happening at an increasing rate. It was obnoxious when we had plans or weren't feeling like socializing.

That's when I had an idea: beat them at their own game. Bright and early one morning, I'm talking 4:30am on a weekday, my girlfriend and I picked up our loudest, most obnoxious friend, and ventured over to her parent’s place. I'm sure you can guess what we did, we barged in, shouting “wake up!”, forcing them out of bed. We proceeded to demand they make us breakfast, and spent hours interrupting their morning routines. Pleased with ourselves, we left around 10am and went on with our day.

The visits from them started happening less and less after that day. Today, they notify us if they're coming over, which is exactly what we wanted the whole time. Why they started doing it in the first place, I'm not sure. In the end, I feel we delivered a powerful statement ironically teaching parents manners.