It all started with Aunt Carol’s retirement cruise—a grand family affair to Hawaii. Everyone was going… except me.Apparently, while I was enjoying my peaceful, notification-free life away from Facebook, my family had been busily planning the whole trip in a group chat I wasn’t part of. Not one person thought to call or text me. The first I heard of it was when I casually asked my sister if I should get Aunt Carol a gift.

“Yeah, bring it on the cruise,” she said.“What cruise? I wasn’t invited.”Cue the awkward pause.“Oh, we thought you’d stay behind to babysit…”I’d been assigned—without my knowledge—to watch my cousin’s toddler, my sister’s two-year-old, and a pair of baby twins. I was stunned. When I confronted Jessica, the cousin in charge, she shrugged it off: “The cruise is booked, there’s no space, but you can still fly to Hawaii on your own dime.”

The audacity.So, I made my own plans. My boyfriend, adult son, and I booked our own vacation. On departure day, as my family rolled up to dump their kids on me, they found my house empty—we were already off on our own trip.They called and messaged frantically. I ignored them.After the trip, I came back to a storm of guilt-tripping. Jessica even claimed they should’ve called the police for “abandoning” their kids. Apparently, I was the villain now—for refusing to babysit when I’d never been asked in the first place.

They called it an “oversight.” But forgetting to include me in planning and assuming I’d babysit? No. I wasn’t being harsh—I was done being invisible unless someone needed something.As a final touch, I brought back small souvenirs for each of them. On the back of the postcards? Phone numbers for local babysitters. Some even stuck them on their fridges.I think I made my point.