As much as kids seem to like to make messes, parents don’t like cleaning up these messes. That’s why parents often make rules to try to avoid the messes happening in the first place.

But it’s not always easy for kids to follow these rules, and sometimes they are so sneaky that they figure out how to make a mess and not get in trouble for it.

In today’s story, one boy really wants to splash in a big puddle, but his mother wants him to stay out of the puddle.

Read on to find out what happens.

Making a splash with his compliance.

My father told me this tale of his childhood. He was a young child at the time, so this would have happened sometime in the early 1940s.

He grew up in a farm house, and he and his sisters were often shooed outside to play, especially when their mom was busy with chores such as making dinner.

However, the previous few days it had been raining, so she hadn’t gotten those breaks and tempers were flaring a bit.

The rain finally let up and she sent them all outside, but there still was an immense puddle almost directly in front of the front door. Therefore, she admonished them to stay out of it.

His father knew better than to disobey his mom.

Well, my father really wanted to play in that puddle, but he was old enough to have made the connection with what happens when you don’t obey mom, so he did what he was told and stayed away from the puddle.

Now I don’t know if he’d already figured out his mother’s preferred phrases, or it was happy coincidence, but he was planning on the following from the beginning, (or so he told me).

As the afternoon wore on, he played here, then there, and as he became aware that it was getting close to dinner time, he made sure he was on the opposite side of that puddle from the door.

But he wasn’t in a rush to obey this time.

Dinner time came, and mom called the kids in.

His sisters went in fairly promptly, avoiding the puddle as requested.

He, however continued to play on the other side, ignoring the call.

When she realized he was still playing, she called again, (obligatory not real name), Johnny! Come in and wash up for dinner!

He knew what he was doing.

Nope. No response, just happily playing away.

Then she said it, and boy was he ready.

John Michael Smith, you come straight here! Right now!

And so he did. He ran straight to her, right through that immense puddle that had been calling to him all afternoon.

Fallout was a through scrubbing of a bath and a cold late dinner, but he still remembers today the joy of that splashing run.

OP’s dad was certainly devious! He knew how to get what he wanted without getting in trouble.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person did something similar but with food.

This person loved the rebellion!

Another person can relate to this story.

Parents need to be careful what they say!

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.