Every marriage is a team sport. Each member must do their part in order to keep things running smoothly. One wife was feeling a bit overburdened by household chores and her husband was going stir-crazy while spending weekends at home. She thought she had come up with a “brilliant” solution to get housework done and also occupy her husband.
Things went according to plan in the beginning, but then it backfired. What she thought would be a win-win situation turned out to be a win-defeat.
A woman decided to share a funny story on Reddit’s TIFU forum about her plan to entertain her husband while also getting household chores done. She offered some background and explained that her husband is considered an essential worker and performs his duties Monday-Friday. But, by the time the weekend hits, he is bored and “depressed” being inside all weekend long.
“Yesterday I had this brilliant idea to make a list of activities he could do to keep busy that would earn him ‘points’ and a list of rewards he could redeem the points for,” she explained.
She created the list of activities to contain a mix of fun tasks and then harder, more tedious items. She wrote, “The things to earn points consisted of a blend of fun things like ‘Invent a new dish using items we have in the pantry,’ ‘Walk the dog’ and ‘find your new favorite TV show.’ These were combined with more practical things like ‘Do a batch of laundry’ or ‘Clean out your dresser.'”
The point system she created would give points for completed tasks and those points could be redeemed for rewards.
“On the rewards part I put some small things like ‘I’ll watch a movie of your choosing’ or ‘I’ll cook any dish you’d like,’” she explained. She assigned “arbitrary point values” to the activities so some tasks had higher and others had lower point levels.
Because all of the rewards had to be doled out and completed inside the home, it made it difficult for her to think of the rewards. Her creativity had run out and she “decided that one of the rewards is that he could have me do anything on the activities list if he redeemed double the points value.”
“I made this little game in less than 15 minutes when he was taking a shower and didn’t really put much thought into how it might be exploited,” she wrote. “This is where I effed up.”
The wife handed her husband the list of chores and he got started.
She hands him the list and he “immediately gets to work on the fun stuff.”
“By the end of the day the dog has had five walks, and I’ve eaten four small gourmet meals, and everything easy or fun is checked off once or more,” she shared. “He’s earned enough ‘points’ to redeem everything on the rewards list and hasn’t used anything. I’m thinking I’m pretty smart and that this was hugely successful.”
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Then, the hubby found a weakness in the system and exploited it.
“I wake up and he immediately starts redeeming his points to have me do all the hard stuff,” she explained. “It’s been six hours and I’ve already cleaned out his dresser, done all the laundry, and walked the dog in the rain….twice. I’ve just now taken a break to write this. He still hasn’t used all his points.”
Being a team player means playing by the rules and even though she created bad rules, this wife played by them.
People decided to leave some comments on the post and laugh at this clever (but not totalitarian) wife.
“Lol good job keeping up with your end of the deal!” one person commented.
“That is amazing. He played the system,” another commented.
One person, however, was quick to point out that the dog was the real mastermind in the situation. “The dog is having the time of his life,” they wrote.
How did Fido manage to pull this off? We love this wife and her funny story. So many of us are doing everything to keep the train on the track and we should commend her for trying to make lemons out of lemonade.
Contents
- 1 A wife decided to share her story about a good idea on paper that went terribly wrong in practice.
- 2 The point system she created would give points for completed tasks and those points could be redeemed for rewards.
- 3 The wife handed her husband the list of chores and he got started.
- 4 Then, the hubby found a weakness in the system and exploited it.
- 5 People decided to leave some comments on the post and laugh at this clever (but not totalitarian) wife.
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