Seasoned parents know to watch what they say around impressionable young kids.

When this dad had a particularly tough day in the yard, he had a few choice words for their neighbor. What he didn’t know was he had unwittingly set a hilarious plan for revenge in motion.

Read on to find out what trouble these kids got themselves into!

So the neighbor had a Moose

I grew up in a bedroom community halfway between Cowtown and Big D. When we moved in, the population was around 3-4 thousand.

This was not out in the country at all and the houses were fairly close to each other… at least by Texas Standards.

My Parents had three young boys, all under the age of 7 and while Dad worked a normal day shift, Mom worked nights and slept most of the day, leaving us boys pretty much to ourselves and whatever fun we could come up with, be it water fights with the garden hose or catching cicadas in the maple trees.

As I said, Dad worked a normal day job, but liked to go to the lake for the weekends, which meant he had to hustle home from work and get the grass cut before the sun went down.

The lot wasn’t terribly large, but back in those days, there were no self-propelled mowers and this was St. Augustine grass in the summertime… in other words, it was hearty and grew pretty fast.

Then something unusual happened.

One week he came home and started cutting the grass as usual, but about 10 minutes into the job, he came storming into the housing swearing like a sailor.

He didn’t want to talk about it, but just ranted for about half an hour and then proceeded to finish cutting he grass without further incident.

Just as it was beginning to get dark, Mom called us to dinner.

We all washed up, Mom was a stickler for such things, and gathered at the dinner table.

During the course of our evening meal, Mom asked us boys what we had been doing during the day… whatever it was, it probably involved rocks or frogs or Tonka trucks.

But what was up with dad earlier?

Next, Mom asked Dad how his day was… and he told her… boring adult stuff, yada yada. Then she asked him what in the world happened that caused his earlier blowup.

He proceeds to tell her that one of our neighbors, an elderly woman who pretty much kept to herself, was the owner of a standard poodle named Moose.

This dog was enormous, even by Texas Standards, and was able to leap her 5 foot chain link fence without breaking a sweat.

Apparently, Moose had been making “deposits” in the front yard the size of dinner plates, and because the grass was growing tall so quickly, had been completely hidden.

Impending disaster in three…two…one…

Of course when Dad was mowing the grass, he hit more than a few of these Moose land mines with the lawnmower, spraying the front of the house and both cars in the driveway.

It shouldn’t take a genius to understand why he was so angry, but of course his boys… yes, we all thought it was hysterically funny.

Dad said, “The next time we find Moose droppings in the front yard, I want a deposit made on that Neighbors doorstep.”

There’s no way three boys could possibly misconstrue this, right?

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

A few days later, Mom wakes up from her afternoon nap and hears water running, so being the mother of 3 boys, she decided to investigate.

She stuck her head out of the back patio door and called out, “Boys! Why is the water running?” to which we replied, “We’re just washing the dustpan Mom!”

Half sleep, she said, “Okay, thank you,” shook her head, and headed back to bed.

But then she asks again.

At dinner that night, the usual questions were asked just like any “normal” evening, but she went on and asked, “Boys, why were y’all washing the dustpan?”

We looked at each other, shrugged and, as the oldest, I said, “Well, Dad told us the next time we found Moose poop in the front yard, we were supposed to take it over the the Neighbor’s and leave it on her doorstep, so we did. We just had to wash the dustpan, so we didn’t get in trouble for bringing poop into the house.”

Now things are clicking.

You could have heard a pin drop as both Parents just sat there, staring at us… whether in shock or their brains having to reboot after a fatal exception… I don’t know.

Then they both busted out laughing, not only at our brazenness… but that we followed Dad’s instructions to the letter.

You could say that was a turning point for them both. From that point forward, they were MUCH more careful about what they said, and how they said it.

The very next day, Moose moved to the country, away from nearby neighbors, who would NOT object to Moose manure.

Hey, they were only doing what they were told, and maybe this clueless dog owner deserved a little surprise.

Redditors were on the edge of their seat, never knowing where this story would take them next.

This user saw the story going in a different direction.

What really happened to Moose?

This redditor would upvote this post twice if they could.

This ex-rowdy boy turned dad can’t help but reminisce about his own past schemes.

From that day on, both parents chose their words a little more wisely, lest their imaginative kids come up with another scheme.

Leave it to Reddit to find the humor in a crappy situation.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.