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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Verden_Leafglow on 2025-11-03 08:25:41+00:00.
On Sundays, my family typically goes to church in town about 45 minutes away from where we live. I'm an Atheist myself, but with four children I opt to be around to help my wife out so she isn't overwhelmed, and I'll admit this church is pretty special - a decent community that has a meal every week: something rare from what I've seen (families or groups take turns doing the meal for everyone each week). It's nice to sit down and talk to people after the service over an actual meal instead of just leaving or having a coffee and a sugar cookie, and then leaving.
Once it seems like things are mostly under control (my children are settled, or in the play room, or whatever), when I've had enough of the service I'll typically go for a walk, usually ending in the kitchen and dining area (where the coffee and sugar cookies from the previous service are located).
Now having been to this church for a while, there's a peculiar thing I've noticed both at the after-service meals and a number of the more "formal" meals - very often, there are no pitchers of water to be found anywhere. Honestly, it's really weird. At some point - I don't know exactly when - I had had enough of visiting the kitchen sink to get water in my glass, or asking someone for water, that I ended up using this "walk" time to just put out the pitchers myself while the service is going on. I'll fill up about 5 pitchers of water, and also put out the glasses, bowls, plates, cutlery, and coffee cups. (No, I don't want to be a volunteer. And I'm not committing to anything. I'm not signing anything! Leave me alone!!!) I do this whenever I'm there at this point and just make it part of my routine, and I'm quite happy with it.
So a number of weeks ago I was at home with my wife and we were discussing what was in our kitchen cupboards and wanting to make more room as things were a little tight. Attention gravitated to our teacups. We both readily agreed that we had too many of them and could do away with some. We did not agree on which ones to do away with. My wife wanted to get rid of certain ones I liked that didn't match or were ugly or whatever, and said that we can probably just donate them somewhere instead of throwing them out.
I paused, thought about it, didn't argue. Okay, let's donate them, all the ones you don't like.
As it happens, since I'm the guy who is putting out all the meal items, like teacups, I knew that the church had somewhat of a shortage of teacups and coffee cups that usually forced us to use a backup of paper cups to cover the need. Also, most of the cups there were too small. So one week when we were going to church, I quietly packed the box of tea cups into our van.
When my routine resumed as usual in the kitchen, I took out our teacups and placed them with the church's teacups - but not just that, I made sure ours were at the FRONT of the group of cups, where they are easy to see, every week. I have not mentioned to anyone where the cups came from.
My wife hasn't either.
We're still married.