I looked at Maya. Maya looked at the floor. Chloe looked at both of us and slowly, deliberately, pulled out her phone.
“This is February,” I said. “She visited for Christmas. You’ve been lifting her panties for four months?”
“Not just any underwear,” Maya said, opening the hall closet. She pulled down a shoebox. Inside were seven pairs. Seven. All different colors. All lace. All with “Chloe” on the tags.
I stared at my wife. The woman who cries at car commercials. The woman who apologizes to plants she forgets to water. My Wife Stole My Sister in laws Underwear -2024...
“You married a woman who steals them,” Chloe shot back. “We all have our things.”
That’s when she told me about the Great Pumpkin Spice Incident of 2023.
“I’m listening.”
The room temperature dropped ten degrees.
Maya turned off the stove. She has a face that can lie better than her mouth—wide, honest eyes, a small, trustworthy mouth. But I’d been married to her for six years. I saw the micro-twitch near her left eyebrow.
Eventually, we resolved it. Maya wrote a 500-word apology and had to post it on Chloe’s TikTok. Chloe, in turn, admitted she’d been stealing Maya’s coffee creamer for years out of spite. They cried. They hugged. They agreed to go to therapy together. I looked at Maya
“That’s wine,” Maya said.
“My underwear. I sew these little RFID tags into the seams. I’m a textile designer, remember? I was testing a new inventory system. Imagine my surprise when I opened my app this morning and saw seven signals coming from your address .”
I waited. She didn’t elaborate.
But 2024 had other plans.
“Derek,” I said. “My wife is a serial underwear thief. My sister-in-law tracks her lingerie with GPS. And I think the stain is marinara.”