Broccoli isn’t the only thing kids hate on their dinner plates. Among the handful of greens (and not so greens), kids might also avoid things like lettuce like it’s the plague. Specifically, iceberg lettuce. Though most of them are very neutral in taste. But I digress.
Anywho, some kids hate it, and here is now a story that’s surfaced on Reddit about how this one kid maliciously complied with their mom’s now-famous quote “when you make dinner, you can make it how you like it.”
What is more, folks online loved the story so much that they themselves were inspired to share similar stories. So, let’s get at it!
More Info: Reddit
Broccoli isn't the only thing kids might dislike as iceberg lettuce might also be on that list—at least in OP's case, which turned out to be a fun story
Image source: Charles Haynes (not the actual photo)
Meet Reddit user u/CheeseLover80, with whom Bored Panda got in touch for an interview. They recently went to the Malicious Compliance subreddit to share a tale of salad proportions from their childhood.
You see, Cheese wasn’t a huge fan of iceberg lettuce—a salad ingredient that was fairly common in their mom’s salad repertoire. And when they politely asked to tone the green down, mother wasn’t having any of it and so she replied that once OP gets to make salad themselves, they will get to decide how much lettuce to add.
A Redditor recently shared how their dislike for iceberg lettuce led to a viral Malicious Compliance post that messed up this one family's preferred salad proportions
Image source: CheeseLover80
So, OP turns 8 years old, old enough to help out in the kitchen with the more extreme pieces of cutlery. So, what do they do? First plan of action - fix that iceberg lettuce situation.
Instead of the regular abundance of leaves that is usually put into a salad, they prompt for just one. One leaf. That’s it. Everything else was pretty much ordinary, except it also was way out of proportion, but only from mom's point of view. For OP, half a pound of cheese, every grape tomato in the entire household, and loads of raw onions was just right.
Needless to say, mom was not all that thrilled about the way the 8-year-old prepared salad, but, hey, “mom, when you make dinner, you can make it how you like it.”
This immediately took OP off salad duty, but the family ate it, and that was a win in OP’s book. Kudos!
The story practically boils down to "you can do it when you get your own", which is a concept ripe for malicious compliance
Image source: USAG- Humphreys (not the actual photo)
Because OP always enjoyed a good Malicious Compliance story, and because they consider themselves a literal person, it was only natural for them to share this piece.
“I found that so many posts were about work maliciousness, and sometimes I enjoyed the ones about kids and how literally they take things. I’ve always remembered that moment as a glorious win, so I finally decided to share,” elaborated Cheese.
The internet found the story every bit as entertaining. So much, in fact, that it kinda started a story-telling extravaganza in the comment section, all in the vein of “when you do it, you can do however you want”.
So much, in fact, that some folks shared their own stories in this vein
And the stories covered everything from eating food to TV channel watching to driver radio privileges to even one user sharing how their kid reached the “why” phase and how they dealt with it, only to have it boomerang back at them. Whatever the case, the post got 690 responses as of this article, with 16,000 upvotes and a handful of awards.
This took OP by surprise. Who knew a simple iceberg lettuce story will get to where it is, right? “I really liked the person who ‘told his parents to just go outside’ when he and his wife had no TV, but it was great to see so many people who had similar moments either with their kids or as kids,” elaborated OP.
Image source: woodleywonderworks (not the actual photo)
But, do you remember how we mentioned that OP is a very literal person? This isn’t the only story they have to tell, and they were very kind in sharing some other instances of more or less malicious compliance:
“I am an adult now, and I know I was asked to help in the kitchen again, but I believe the instructions were made more explicit. I don’t remember any other instances in the kitchen. I do know there have been others.”
“I worked at a fast food chain where one manager told me I couldn’t use a chair (it was a face-to-face drive-thru and had many slow times), so the guys helped me build a seating apparatus with spare boxes.”
“My first-year language teacher asked us to write a sentence on the board using a common verb, I looked up several words to formulate a very inappropriate sentence that only she would understand.”
“Boss told me to cut out the server backup amount, told him that would crash the system, and no backups would be made, told me to do it anyway, you can guess what happened… Lots of people’s work was lost, etc.”
“As for cooking, I push the limits on people’s comfort levels, but I have never had a complaint. I am told I’m pretty good (most of the time).”
And here's how the rest of the internet reacted to the story
But back to lettuce. According to Lettuce Info, a website powered by the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement program which aims to assure safe leafy greens and confidence in food safety programs in the US, iceberg lettuce’s key characteristics are that it has a mild taste, has some sweetness to it, and a crunchy texture. That’s why folks love it in salads so much.
But despite them being a certain favorite among some, they offer comparatively little nutritional value, apart from vitamin K and folate. And, as OP put it in our interview, it’s “just crunchy water”, which is why they don’t like it.
You can check out Cheese’s post in context with all of the comments here. But not without sharing your thoughts on this! Do you perhaps have some culinary stories of malicious compliance—or any malicious compliance when it comes to parents? If so, we’d love to hear them in the comment section below!