Forcing the other one to turn off the lights and TV

When Jared and Audrey would stay up late in the family room, one or both of them would often fall asleep in front of the TV.

Whoever woke up first — or was still awake and decided to call it a night — would move to gather their things and quietly dash out of the room, straight to their bedroom. This made it so that the other one was eventually forced to do all the chores of going to bed: turning off the TV, locking the back door, putting away any food or drink left out, letting the cat out, and turning off all the lights.

These tasks were so tedious and annoying to do while tired that the one who fled the room would revel in pure glee at the thought of forcing the other one to do them. (Even more triumphant was retiring to bed with one of their parents still on the couch, effectively forcing them to do it all.)

Was it fair? Maybe not, but both brothers fully bought in to the rules of the game. If you woke up past midnight and saw that the family room was empty, you knew you had been had. All you could do was take care of the tasks for that night and hope to get them back tomorrow.  ❐

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