He Said “As You Want.” The Creek Took It Literally.

He handed them a directive so diplomatically useless it read like permission to do mischief: “As you want.”

Dad’s crew treated that like an instruction manual. They loaded the defective runs, drove to the nearest drainage ditch that fancied itself a creek, and tipped the lot in. Inventory, post-op:

• wet boxes of product
• one clipboard with “As you want” still legible
• a manager who had not anticipated literalism as a threat vector

Someone in the thread asked, deadpan, “Rule 7?” — which in this case translated to: don’t dump into waterways, you legally simpleton. Another helpfully observed the obvious: the manager was now “up a creek,” and the internet deputized a canoe. Someone else chimed, “I find this story palatable,” which is a classy way to describe corporate decisions that taste like regret.

Mic-drop: when you tell technicians to do something “as you want,” you’ve handed them a map and a match. The creek will remember the paperwork; the manager will remember the phrase; and somewhere, a paddle remains unrequested.