If you grew up in a family that wasn’t very religious but occasionally attended Mass at a Catholic church, would you be annoyed if your mom suddenly demanded that you have to start going to church every week, or would you happily agree to go?

In this story, one young woman is in this situation, and she agrees to go. However, years later, she tells her mom what she really did while she was gone.

Let’s read the whole story.

Going to Mass is not the same as going to Church

I was cooking some empanadas (argentinian fast food delicacy) and remembered that I learned how to cook them via malicious compliance. Let me explain:

I grew up in Argentina, in a catholic family, going to a catholic school, in a mostly catholic country.

But, even though my family was catholic, going to Mass wasn’t a regular occurrence on our family. Mom would go from time to time, as a family we would go from time to time, but it wasn’t something usual.

She had a lot of friends who went to Mass.

Since I studied in a catholic school, most of my close friends did go to Mass every Sunday, around 7PM, to a Church that was at around 10-15 minutes walking from home.

After Mass, they usually stayed for a little while afterwards, talking about whatever teenage boys and girls talk about.

This happens when I was fresh out of high school and starting university but still living with my parents.

In Argentina, there are no huge campus with dorms and stadiums and all that, most of the people that study at universities still live with their parents and go to Uni every day. Also, most of the public ones are very good and free.

Her mom had a weird demand.

For some reason, Mom comes one day and starts saying that I have to go to Church, that I have to set a good example for my younger brothers and bla bla bla. But just me, not the family, not my parents, just me.

By that time, I’m pretty much an atheist or, at least, not really into the catholic Church and all that comes around that, so I have no intention whatsoever to even step inside of a Church.

Going to a catholic school sometimes has that effect.

I even clashed a lot with religion teachers in the school, arguing and not buying their tales.

They couldn’t do nothing about it because I was a good student and scored 8,9s or 10s on everything (B+ or As are the equivalent).

She did as she was told…kind of.

Nevertheless, I say OK to Mom (you don’t argue with Mom), she said that I have to go to Church… to Church I’ll go… but she never said that I have to go to Mass.

So, at around 6:40PM, every single Sunday, I would say “bye, I’m going to the Church” and go out, but I would stop first at a empanadas joint that was halfway to Church, eat a couple empanadas, watch the last soccer match of the day with the employees, learn how to make empanadas the right way, have a chat with the employees and arrive to Church 5 minutes before Mass ended, staying right by the door waiting for my friends to come out of the building, then have a chat and a couple laughs with them and return home afterwards.

Mom never found out (this was way before mobile phones, we roamed the streets free by then and nothing ever happened).

But, ten or so years later, with me having moved out of my parent’s, I told Mom about this, she shrugged and said “well, we all have to disobey our parents sometimes”.

I love her mom’s reaction at the end. She technically didn’t disobey. She did actually go to the church.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

She may have really done enough to satisfy her mom.

This person shares a similar story.

Here’s how another person gets out of going to Mass.

Another person shares how they all “go to church.”

She did what her mom said but not what she meant.

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.