Mom wakes up to a surprise at 2 am, discovers her 12-year-old's clever takeout scheme: 'Well played'

Most children quickly adapt their family members’ habits—good or bad—finding clever ways to mimic behaviors they observe. While many of us are guilty of eating late at night, a pre-teen boy, inspired by his seniors, indulges in midnight cravings. The 12-year-old boy’s mom, Claudia Mercer—who goes by @claudiamercer5 on TikTok—was awoken at 2:30 a.m. when the security camera outside their Oregon home picked up movement. An alert on the woman’s phone broke her sleep, leading to an unexpected moment that ultimately resulted in her heaping praises on her son. In the video, the boy was seen sneaking a McDonald’s DoorDash delivery into the house in the middle of the night.

It all began when Mercer’s sleep was interrupted, and she saw someone approaching their home carrying a parcel. Mercer was initially 'stunned' to see an individual coming closer to their property, heading to their backyard. She kept track of him as he headed to the rear of the house, experiencing a "series of emotions."

"At first, I'm thinking, 'Who's this guy coming up to the house?’ Then I had a sudden panic as I saw him change direction to the rear of the house. It seemed like he had a purpose or knew where he was going," she told Newsweek.

Suddenly, the SimpliSafe CCTV camera shifted its focus to Mercer’s son Devin, 12, who was popping his head out of a window. The boy was stretching out for the bag the man was carrying. Before long, it became clear that Devin had ordered takeout for himself, and the delivery agent purposely skipped the front door to avoid getting caught by his mom. Additionally, the boy had no idea that his mom was watching him as he received his late-night Big Mac order through the window. “When you find out your 12-year-old orders DoorDash at 2:30 a.m. and found a way to not set off the alarm. Well played, sir,” she wrote in the video's text overlay.

“I was stunned. I wanted to laugh, but I had so many questions: just how? What did you get? And how did you pay?” Mercer told the outlet. She added that she took the matter up with Devin during breakfast the next day. Her son simply admitted his late-night cravings and offered a simple explanation. “Sometimes you just need that Big Mac fix,” he reportedly told his mom. Notably, the boy easily paid the delivery agent, thanks to his mother having set up his Apple Pay a year earlier. “Almost a year before, I had set up both kids with Apple Pay and had sent $10 each as a test. Apparently, a Big Mac with delivery is $9.90, so he had enough,” she acknowledged.

Mercer later asked her son to send another $5 tip to the agent and also glued the window closed, restricting any further orders. Among the many reactions the video received, a DoorDasher, @sarah.nichols96, wrote, “I saw a kid jump out of a window to come get his food. The directions read ‘Turn off lights and do not get out of the car.’”

“I had a kid that asked me to deliver it through his window because he didn’t want to eat what his mom was making for dinner,” @stacie811 shared a similar experience.

You can follow Claudia Mercer (@claudiamercer5) on TikTok for more wholesome content.