— “Kristin, can I take your car?” Anton asked his wife. “I need to run a quick errand!”

— “What’s wrong with yours?” Kristina looked at her husband questioningly. “It’s right there in the yard next to mine!”

— “It’s low on gas, and I don’t want to stop at the station—there’s the usual line out to the road!” he replied. “So can I take yours?” he asked again.

— “Alright, take it, just be careful! And be home by three—I need to go too, I have a client meeting at three-thirty!”

— “Okay!” Anton said.

He took the keys to his wife’s car from her purse, which was hanging on the coat rack in the hallway. He got dressed and left the apartment.

Closer to two o’clock, Kristina called Anton to remind him again to be home by three. He assured her he’d definitely be home by that time, told her not to worry, and hung up.
At three, when she was already about to leave for her appointment, Anton still wasn’t home. She tried calling him several times, but he wouldn’t even pick up. She was about to take his car, but couldn’t find the keys to it anywhere.

Kristina had to call a taxi and go meet the client by taxi.

Kristina worked as a designer, mainly interiors. She was self-employed, and usually negotiated orders with clients either by phone or online. But this time they invited her to the site itself, which needed her professional eye.

Because of Anton she was almost forty minutes late. But since the client wasn’t in any particular rush, he waited for her, and everything went smoothly.

When she got home after meeting the client, Anton still wasn’t there. He also wasn’t answering his wife’s calls, just like before.

In the evening, around ten, Anton showed up a little drunk.

— “I don’t get it, Anton, what is this supposed to be? How long was I supposed to wait for you at home? Why are you setting me up like this? And you even took the keys to your own car! I was forty minutes late because of you!” Kristina fumed.

— “Baby, please don’t scold me!” her husband answered, his words slightly slurred. “It just happened—I got invited to the table and I couldn’t say no!”

— “Wonderful! So you managed to screw over your wife with the car, but you couldn’t say no to who-knows-who! Why didn’t you pick up the phone? Or were you not allowed to talk there? And where were you anyway? Did you seriously drive home drunk in my car?”

— “Don’t be mad, Kristin! Honestly! So what if I didn’t pick up—I just didn’t hear it, my phone was in my jacket! And the car’s fine, if you want, go down and see for yourself!”

Kristina did just that. She took her phone, went downstairs, and checked the whole car outside with the flashlight. And sure enough, the car was intact. When she came back inside, Anton had already managed to fall asleep. And she still hadn’t found out where he’d been running around all day.

She knew perfectly well that waking him now and trying to question him was useless. So she went to bed herself.

The next morning her husband woke up earlier than Kristina. He quickly showered, had breakfast, and went off on his errands again. And again, he took his wife’s car—this time without asking.

When she woke up, Kristina didn’t find Anton next to her. Thinking he was in the kitchen, she got out of bed to look for him. After going through the whole apartment, she didn’t find him in any room.

So Kristina started calling Anton. He picked up his wife’s call only on the third try.

— “Where are you?” she asked straight away. “Where did you go? And why didn’t you tell me anything?”

— “Kristin, I’ll be back soon! I just drove out for a bit, on business! Don’t worry about me! Love you, kisses…” Kristina heard in the receiver, and Anton immediately hung up.

She grumbled at her husband a bit more, but didn’t call him back. She had breakfast, sat down at her work computer in their bedroom, and got to work on the project she’d been commissioned to do yesterday.

Kristina was immersed in her work all day. The process drew her in so much she didn’t even notice how the day passed. She glanced at the clock in the lower right corner of the screen and saw it was almost eight in the evening, and Anton still wasn’t home. She felt for her phone on the desk and dialed her husband’s number.

This time his phone was completely off. She got up from the desk, stretched, and went to the kitchen to make coffee, and at the same time looked out the window to check on her beautiful car.

But to her great surprise, Kristina’s car wasn’t in its spot. And on top of that, Anton’s car had also disappeared from their yard.

She immediately ran to the hallway to check the car keys and documents in her purse. Neither was there.

Taking her phone from the kitchen table again, she tried calling her husband several more times, but his number was still switched off.

She called several of his friends and acquaintances, and none of them knew where Anton was—at least that’s what they said.

Kristina did consider calling the police to report a theft, but she decided to wait for her husband and find out everything from him. Where, she wondered, had both their cars disappeared to at the same time?

A little later, closer to midnight, the doorbell rang. Kristina hurried to the door and, without looking through the peephole, opened it. Standing on the threshold was her husband, barely able to stand. He was so drunk he could barely speak; he couldn’t even make it to the bedroom. He shuffled along the wall and collapsed by the bedroom door, where he immediately passed out on the floor.

Kristina tried everything to bring him around, but couldn’t. Checking the pockets of his jacket and jeans, she found no keys to either her car or his.

Waking Anton in that condition made absolutely no sense.

The next morning she woke up much earlier than usual; she didn’t find her husband lying by the door where he had decided to camp out the night before. Kristina went into the living room and saw the body on the couch, in the same clothes he’d come home in.

Apparently he’d woken up at night and moved from the hallway floor to the couch.

— “Up!” she shook Anton by the arm. “Get up, Anton!” she demanded loudly.

— “Baby, just… let me sleep…” the man muttered through sleep.

— “I said get up!” his wife shouted. “Where are our cars?” she asked.

— “How should I know where our cars are?!” Anton mumbled sleepily. “They should be in the yard!”

— “What yard, you drunkard?! Where did you put our cars? Where is my car, I’m asking you?” Kristina wouldn’t let up.

Only now did Anton open his eyes. He looked at his wife, not quite understanding what was happening.

— “Why are you looking at me like that? Where is my car, I’m asking you?” Kristina began to lose her patience.

Anton still stared at his wife with a blank look.

— “Bring me some water, please!” he suddenly asked.

— “I’ll bring you some water, alright!” she was getting genuinely angry. “Up you get, lush!”

— “Why are you yelling, what happened?” Anton grunted, slowly starting to think straight.

— “Yesterday morning, while I was sleeping, you took my keys and the documents for my car out of my purse!” she began. “In the evening I discover that not only is my car gone from the yard, but yours has disappeared somewhere too! How did you manage to lose both our cars?” Kristina was already yelling.

— “Oh, that’s what you mean!” Anton finally realized what his wife wanted. “I lent mine to Dima—he’s without wheels right now, he sold his! We were celebrating the sale of his car yesterday! And yours, Kristin, I probably left near his house! Or… maybe not?” he wondered.

— “What do you mean, ‘maybe not’?!”

— “Right, yes—yours is parked in his yard! I’ll sleep a little more and then go bring it back!”

— “Excuse me, and what made you think you could lend your car to some Dima? Are you even normal?” Kristina was openly shocked.

— “Quit yelling already!” he pleaded. “What’s the big deal?”

— “Are you serious? You really think there’s nothing wrong here?”

— “Well, yeah,” Anton said. “I do think so! Bring me some water!”

— “Go get your own water! And get your half-sober carcass up—we’re going to get the cars!”

— “What cars?” he didn’t understand.

— “Ours! We’re picking up mine and yours! I am not going to let your buddy cruise around in our car! That ‘buddy’ who only pretends to be your friend when he needs something from you! And how did you even come up with lending him a car?” Kristina couldn’t grasp her husband’s logic.

— “Last time you needed his help—when you asked him to help us move—he didn’t want to strain his back, but now he’s joyriding in your car! Not happening!” she declared.

— “Kristin, I already promised him, and I gave him the car yesterday! How do you think it’ll look if I show up now and demand my wheels back? It’ll look stupid!”

— “It’ll look right! What looked stupid was you giving him the car yesterday! Do you have any brains at all when you do things?”

— “I’m not taking anything back from him!” the man sulked.

— “Come again?! And why not?”

— “Because!” Anton replied with swagger. “Yesterday I gave him the keys and permission, and today I suddenly changed my mind and decided to take it back? That’s not how it’s done, Kristin! At least, not with my friends!”

— “I couldn’t care less how things are done with your friends, Anton! I said get ready—we’re going to get our cars! I’m going to order a taxi!” Kristina said and left the living room for her phone in the bedroom.

When she came back, Anton was still lying on the couch, this time with his eyes closed.

Losing her temper, she grabbed her husband’s arm and yanked him off the couch. Anton jumped up as if scalded with boiling water.

— “What are you doing, are you crazy?” he yelled.

They argued and bickered a bit more, but in the end his wife got her way, and they set off to retrieve their cars.

When they arrived in the yard of Anton’s friend Dima, Kristina immediately saw her car, and next to it her husband’s car. Anton called his friend and said he would come up to get the keys to his wife’s car. He said nothing about his own. For that he got a look of pure indignation from his wife.

Dima told Anton he’d come down himself and bring everything, since he was heading out somewhere.

When he came down and handed Anton the keys to Kristina’s car, he himself walked over to the second car, opened it like it was his own, started it, and got behind the wheel.

Kristina was stunned by such nerve.

— “Hold on, is he just going to drive off in your car?” she asked Anton indignantly.

— “Come on, Kristin, not now!” her husband demanded at once.

— “Then when?” she asked.

Kristina walked up to her husband’s car, opened the driver’s door, and said to this Dima:

— “Out of the car. Now,” she demanded.

— “Antoha, what’s with the jokes?” Dima shouted to his friend. “We agreed on everything yesterday!”

Anton ran up to his car and tried to smooth over the quickly heating situation.

— “Listen, Kristin, maybe he can take yours then!” he suggested to his wife. “Yours just sits at home most of the time anyway, and you only take it out two or three times a week!”

Kristina was dumbfounded by the suggestion.

— “Maybe you should offer me to one of your friends for a week while you’re at it? Huh? Do you even hear what you’re saying? What is this to you, a toy? It’s worth—both yours and mine—almost three million rubles, and you’re just offering either one to whoever?”

— “Why are you yelling at me?” Anton immediately raised his voice to his wife in front of his friend.

— “Shut your mouth. Now. And what made you decide you can dispose of my car like it’s yours? Take the keys, sit down, and drive home! Some ‘friend’ you’ve found here!”

— “Maybe you should shut your pretty little mouth yourself, huh, sweetheart?” came from inside the car. “You come here to make a scene in my yard? Antoha, control your woman! Or I’ll do it myself!”

Kristina waited for her husband’s reaction. Now she was very curious—would he stand up for her, or would he, as usual, grovel in front of his buddy.

Anton stepped right up to Dima and said calmly:

— “Out of the car. Move it,” he ordered.

— “What’s with you, bro? We had a deal! And keep your doll in line—she’s acting real ugly!”

Anton glanced at his wife, grimaced with displeasure, turned back to his friend, and yanked him out of his car by the scruff of the neck.

He pulled him out and threw him right onto the ground, then leaned over him and, in the same calm tone, repeated:

— “You open your filthy mouth about my wife again, and I’ll ram your teeth down your throat. Got it?”

— “What the hell, Antoha? I was just kidding!” Dima blurted out, suddenly frightened.

— “I’m not kidding,” Anton said.

Then he turned to his wife and told her to go start her car. He silently got into his own, and together they drove home, leaving Dima in his yard.

Kristina saw her husband like this for the first time. Before, she hadn’t thought he was capable of it. She’d thought he only flexed at home and pretended to be tough. Turns out, not only at home. And she really liked it.

It was the first time in her life he’d done something she genuinely appreciated. But despite that, Anton still got an earful at home for handing out their cars left and right. His tough-guy routine that worked with his friends didn’t work on her…