The Martydom Addiction

A mother with a comfortable life insists on hardship. Though her children send her thousands every month and cover every expense, she rides a rusted bicycle an hour each way to a distant market for a few cents off vegetables, wears pants bought fifteen years ago, and screams at her daughter in a store for trying to buy her new clothes.

When she is hospitalized, she throws a tantrum over the cost of her own medication. Her daughter finally stops enabling her, telling the doctor to let her suffer if she likes it so much. But the mother's need to appear long-suffering only deepens, and when she announces she will take a low-paying landscaping job, her words about idle family members land on her daughter-in-law, who writes novels at home.

No one can out-stubborn her, and the family is left to wonder how far her addiction to suffering will go.