Rent or Forfeit 1

At eighteen Tommy Jenkins should have been preparing for university but having partied and bunked off class throughout his final year of A-levels, he had failed all his subjects. Worse still as soon as he reached 18, his mother packed up her things and moved halfway across the country to live with her boyfriend she had met online. Penny less and with nowhere else to go he showed up at the apartment his two older sisters shared and begged them to let him stay for a while.

Sarah and Monica were 3 and 5 years older than him respectively, they had both finished university and weren’t thrilled to have their little brother coming to live with them, but as he had nowhere else to go, they were willing to put him up in the spare room for a few months until he could sort his life out.

Tommy was shown to the spare room and placed his suitcase next to the bed, it was filled with all his worldly possessions, which amounted to a few items of clothing and his games console. He

was initially very grateful for the room and promised to look for a job and pay his way but 2 months later having contributed nothing to rent, he just sat around all day eating all the food in the fridge and playing computer games, e rarely showered, smelt terrible and was turning their nice apartment into a pigsty.

Sarah the younger of the two sisters had had enough and wanted to kick him out on to the street. Monica who was the more logical of the two said they couldn’t do that but agreed something had to be done as she came up with a way to force Tommy to get off his backside and find a job.

On a Saturday night, they confronted Tommy and gave him an ultimatum, he either clean himself up and start contributing to the weekly rent or pay a forfeit. If he didn’t agree to their terms, they would kick him out. With little choice Tommy agreed.

The rules were simple Sarah and Monica would each write down ten embarrassing things on a piece of paper and put them in to a hat. Tommy would select two at random each week he failed to pay rent and chose one of them to do.

With the sisters having written their forfeits, they asked Tommy if he had money for rent that week. When he said he didn’t he was forced to pick two pieces of paper from the hat. They read.

1) Learn to apply and start wearing makeup everyday

2) Shave your entire body and keep it smooth. Wear nothing but shorts from now on (must be a different pair everyday)