When Teaching Stepmom Self Defense Goes Wrong -... -

Mark stood behind Claire, gently positioning her arms. “Okay, if someone bear hugs you from behind, you stomp their instep, then throw your elbow straight back into their solar plexus—or, you know, lower if you’re mean.”

Claire’s brain, in a beautiful, catastrophic misfire of maternal instinct and newly downloaded self-defense programming, interpreted “light pressure” as “imminent threat to her true crime podcast addiction.” She stomped— hard —directly on Mark’s unsuspecting instep. He let out a squeak that belonged to a much smaller mammal. When Teaching Stepmom Self Defense Goes Wrong -...

Just then, his dad, Bill, walked in from the garage, holding a power drill. He surveyed the scene: his wife in a fighter’s stance, his stepson curled in the fetal position amidst the remains of a beloved giraffe, making sounds like a deflating balloon. Mark stood behind Claire, gently positioning her arms

Everything. Within the first ten minutes. Just then, his dad, Bill, walked in from

Then came the elbow.