Most teenagers hustle to save up for their first car. Some hustle their parents for one. And then there's Sally, who's perfected the art of the ask without putting in any of the work.

At 18, unemployed and fresh out of excuses, Sally decided to hit up her stepmom for one of her two vehicles. The answer wasn't just no. It was "get a job." And according to a post that recently blew up on Reddit's r/AITA forum, that suggestion alone was enough to trigger a full family crisis.

The stepmom who posted the story shares a 5-year-old son with her husband. Sally is his daughter from a previous marriage, and according to the original poster, she's spent most of her life weaponizing her parents' divorce to extract maximum perks from both sides.

"She is now a lazy adult," the stepmom wrote, "has poor grades in school, no perspective, no job, no desire to get a job or do something with her life."

The real problem, she says, isn't just Sally. It's the parents. Instead of co-parenting like functional adults, they've turned discipline into a competitive sport. Dad cuts off her allowance? Mom slides her cash. Mom grounds her? Dad hands over the car keys. It's a parenting ping-pong match where Sally always wins.

When the stepmom asked her husband why he parents their shared son so differently than Sally, he had a simple explanation: she's a "normal, sane woman" he can actually communicate with. Translation? His ex is not.

Things came to a head this summer when Sally's car broke down. Her social life was suddenly in jeopardy, and neither biological parent wanted to loan out their vehicle or pay for repairs. So Sally turned to her stepmom, who owns two cars.

Here's the thing: that SUV Sally had her eye on wasn't just sitting idle. It was issued by the stepmom's employer. The second car, a smaller one used for errands, wasn't exactly spare either. Both were in active use, and neither was up for grabs.

"I refused and told her she can't use any of my car," the stepmom wrote. "She insisted and said I don't need two cars at the same time but she needs one to get around. I told her she is free to use public transportation or get a job and buy one herself."

Sally did not take this well. She ran to extended family members, claiming she was being "exploited" and "sent to work" like some character out of a Charles Dickens novel.

The stepmom found the whole thing ridiculous. "I had a good laugh about this with my husband's sister," she said, "but my MIL claims I could have just refused instead of telling her to get a job. I am a little confused what's so bad about telling an adult to get a job. It's not like I sent a 12-year-old to work for her food."

She has a point. This isn't exactly child labor we're talking about. It's a suggestion that an 18-year-old maybe contribute something to her own transportation needs.

Turns out, this kind of car-related conflict isn't unusual. According to insurance site Lemonade, more than half of parents with teenage drivers have gotten into arguments over driving privileges, making it one of the most common sources of household tension. And the financial stakes are real: supporting a teen driver costs families an average of $6,480 per year. That might explain why this stepmom wasn't eager to hand over her keys to someone who hadn't earned them.

Reddit's response was swift and decisive: the stepmom was absolutely in the right.

Commenters offered both moral support and practical advice.

"Hide your keys," one warned.

"If one of my cars goes missing, I'm not going to call you to beg you to bring it back," another added. "I'm calling the police and I will press charges."

One person even suggested disconnecting the car battery as a precaution.

But some commenters looked beyond the immediate car drama to the bigger parenting failure. "Your husband and his ex-wife hate each other more than they love their daughter," one person wrote. "They're not doing her any favors by undermining one another."

Others acknowledged that while the stepmom's refusal was justified, Sally might also be a victim of terrible parenting. "She has never had someone teach her responsibility or how to be an adult. These things are not something she is likely to pick up naturally, especially in the kind of family environment you are describing."

One commenter delivered the verdict with brutal clarity: "She learned early the fine art of playing one parent against the other and now expects to be a leech. Don't give in."

At the end of the day, this isn't really about a car. It's about what happens when divorced parents use their kids as weapons against each other, and what happens when someone finally says no. Sally wanted wheels. She got a wake-up call instead. Whether she'll actually listen remains to be seen.