Boys and Bathrooms

The Brainiac has racked up a tab, payable to Firecracker. They share a bathroom between their rooms. B locks both doors when he uses it, but forgets to unlock his brother's side when he is finished. This has caused strife for almost three years now, so I told B he had to pay his brother a dollar every time he forgets to unlock it. Rather quickly, he ran up a tab of $5. In a clever move, B brokered a secret deal to barter his debt away. He would build some Lego ships for the FC. I'm not sure how it all went down, but when I paid them their allowances on Thursday, the FC wanted his money. B then hurled the "deal" ships on the floor, breaking them into many pieces. I reacted by taking away his play date - the one I was about to take him to. But after considering it, I decided to skip the torture of leaving him home to seethe and aggravate his brother (and me) all day, and sent him away. Instead, he wasn't able to attend a birthday party the next day. I backed off that one too, allowing him to go an hour late, after a load of chores at home. Not so consistent, I know, but he did come home complaining that he missed the best part of the party, so the desired effect was achieved.