Imagine being in high school and mowing your neighbors’ lawns for free. Would you be upset if one neighbor were extra picky about how she wanted her yard done, or would you be happy to comply?

In this story, one teenage boy is in this situation, and he is really frustrated by the neighbor. One day she says something that gives him the perfect opportunity for malicious compliance, so he takes it!

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Everything green? Okay…

This story happened about 10-ish years ago.

Backstory: When I was in highschool and still living at home, we were required to do community service in order to graduate.

Those who did more than the minimum 10 hours were granted a recommendation from the highschool to any college they applied to on their application into university where they would recommend as a “contributor to society”.

I had been working my own lawn-care business…better phrased as a community service since I was in 9th grade. As it came to my 12th grade year(senior year in high school) all of my neighbors were having their yard mowed and trimmed by me.

Come my final year of primary school before university I was still mowing the lawns of my neighbors free of charge, but I had also become alternate captain of my primary school’s hockey team.

One neighbor was a nusance.

Come my final year before university, I was still taking care of yards for my neighbors. Most of them were old enough that they couldn’t take care of them without help.

Of course…there was always one person who always had extra things for me to do, regardless of what I had to get done after their yard (theirs was normally the last one since it was the closest to my home at the time), Let’s call her Betty.

Initially it was just small things, like moving their yard furniture so I could mow their whole yard without missing anything.

Then, the day I was sick of everything.

It was a hot day, and OP was exhausted.

I had mowed 5 yards in 95 Fahrenheit(35C) after I had completed an hour conditioning session for hockey and an additional conditioning session for lacrosse.

Honestly, I was in a bad mood.

I had gotten through all of the yards without a hitch because the people I was mowing for knew it was essentially for free…Then it was Betty’s turn.

I was already going to be late for practice and I knew it.

Betty was unhappy with her yard.

As I started wheeling my mower out of her yard I hear a: “Where do you think you are going?”

I was a little stunned because I wasn’t used to people just randomly running out and yelling at me, and at this point I had completed mowing and was about to put the spray jug of Round-up away since I was done spraying all the weeds in their yard.

I responded with “I am done, I am going home.”

Betty: “You’re leaving without completing my yard? There is a lot of green that I am not approving! I won’t sign off until all of the green in the yard has been hit!”

OP confirmed that Betty really said what she said.

Queue malicious compliance:

I looked at her and said “you want me to hit everything that is green before I leave?”

Betty: “I want you to hit anything green before you leave”

I think some of you can already see where this is going…

As a high-schooler who was told to spray “anything green”, I started spraying everything green.

Betty seems to be denying the truth.

The next day after school, my dad called me into a room. When I walked in, Betty was there scowling.

Betty: “You killed all of my yard”

Me:”You told me to round-up everything green in your yard.”

My dad:”Is that actually what you told him?”

Betty: “Absolutely not!”

Dad:”Ok…what did you say?”

She admitted the truth.

Betty: “I told him to…” She gets really quiet. She starts to bring up that the yard wasn’t as short as she wanted and then walks away.

Dad:”What did you tell him to do?”

Betty:  “I told him to hit anything green in the yard.”

I haven’t seen such a big eating grin on my dad’s face since.

Dad:”you didn’t…”

Me: “I did…”

He did exactly what she told him to do.

I ended up spraying round-up on Betty’s entire yard. Anything green…round-up. Grass…round-up. Any flower with a green stem…round-up. her prized orchids…round-up.

Since I was already going to be late, I didn’t just to the recommended level of concentrate. It was twice as strong as it should have been.

Fallout: Since I had a whole neighborhood of people who would say I did an amazing job taking care of their yard, when Betty called the cops to report me for property damage, she got a warning for falsifying police reports as well as a scolding by the cops to not tell someone to do something if they don’t want it executed to the letter.

I have since moved back into the same neighborhood as I grew up in and see Betty around. She glares at me every time I see her. Her yard has not recovered.

She really should’ve clarified. Her statement meant that even the police were on his side, which is awesome!

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

I’m guessing this commenter is European.

Betty could mow her lawn herself.

Roundup must be really powerful.

At least she never needed her lawn mowed again!

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.