Many teenagers quickly learn that vague instructions can be twisted in their favor.

So when one teen’s dad order him to stack a massive pile of firewood right before a night out with friends, the teen got to work without arguing.

But where he chose to stack it led to some raised eyebrows — and some laughs, too.

Keep reading for the full story.

Have to stack firewood before I can go see my friends? You got it.

Many years ago, when I was a teenager, I made plans with my friends to go out for a night.

We planned this several days in advance, and I’d told my parents what we were going to do.

But quickly, plans changed.

However, the day of, my dad came home from work for lunch and dumped a trailer load of pre-cut firewood in the driveway.

He told me I needed to stack it all.

I reminded him that I was getting picked up in a few hours and would be gone the rest of the day and night.

His dad was unsympathetic.

He told me, “You’re not leaving until all that wood is stacked nicely and out of the driveway!”

“Nicely and out of the driveway,” eh?

Okay.

So that’s exactly what this teen did. Just not how his dad expected.

He left after that, and I began my work.

I grabbed the key for the front door to the house first and then started stacking the wood… in front of the back door.

(Our front door isn’t used very much, to the point that my parents don’t even have keys to it on their everyday keychain, so I was blocking the back door.)

I stacked it up to my chest and wide enough that it couldn’t be squeezed past to get to the door.

Then I went in through the front door, grabbed my stuff, and waited for my friends.

We had a fun night.

But the teen’s parents didn’t react the way he expected.

I came back the next morning to find half the wood pile re-stacked on the other side of the pile.

I was fully expecting to get my *** chewed out.

Mom got quite the kick out of it, but dad wasn’t happy.

But when I got inside, I saw my mum, who chuckled and recounted what happened.

Basically, my mum and dad both got home at the same time and saw what I’d done.

She was laughing; my dad was fuming.

Then his mom fully took his side.

He told her what he’d told me to do, and she ripped into him for dumping the wood on me a few hours before he knew I would be leaving with friends.

(She was also ticked because I’d done the right thing by her for telling them about what we were doing and where we were going, and him doing that to me might discourage me from telling them in future.)

He had to re-stack half the woodpile to get to the door.

Thankfully, he wasn’t upset about it the next day.

Everyone learned a valuable lesson here.

What did Reddit think?

If this reader were the parent, they’d handle things a lot differently.

Building trust was a lot more important than stacking wood.

It’s a lot easier to make the most of chores when you don’t have anything better to do.

The mother was the real hero of this story.

This teen learned a valuable lesson about taking the easy way out; this dad learned a valuable lesson about choosing his words carefully.

Unclear instructions can pile up in unexpected places.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.