A mother in Utah is using the circumstances created by coronavirus to her advantage. According to The Daily Mail, the antics were first revealed by the woman’s son, TikTok star Tyler Bott, whose popularity helped the clip go mega-viral.
In a recent post, which has racked up about 15 million views, Bott showed his mother sitting the family down for a serious talk where she explained how things were going to change over the coming weeks in self-isolation. After holding up a list of chores, she explained that she had hidden all the toilet paper in the house and that her children would earn squares for every chore they checked off. Chores ranged from the mandatory, like studying, while some were optional, like cleaning up the bathroom. Each chore also had an assigned value, being worth anywhere from one to five sheets of toilet paper.
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On Monday, March 16, all K-12 public schools closed in the state were closed for two weeks at least, as have many schools across the U.S. The Utah Department of Health has continued to evaluate the situation, which may lead to longer school closures in the near future.
“Corona Virus got our school CANCELED so my mom called a meeting,” Tyler wrote in the caption of the post, which showed his mom unveiling the new house rules.
“So you guys heard that school’s gonna be canceled for two weeks,” the mom says. “We’re not just gonna sit around playing video games. We’re gonna have jobs. You can have some fun, but we’re gonna do some extra jobs.” For extra motivation, she adds that she’s “taken all the toilet paper out of the house and you have to earn it.”
The motivational technique comes as a number of retails outlets have reported shortages of toilet paper, largely resulting from people panic-buying supplies at a time when 1.5 billion people around the globe have been asked to self-isolate to help slow the spread of coronavirus.
In response to the shortage, which has made an uneasy situation that much more difficult, Charmin and Cottonelle both vowed to ramp up production in hopes to end the sudden shortage.
“We understand how frustrating this is, and we want you to know we take our responsibility to our consumers very seriously,” Charmin said in a statement on March 16. While its unclear when the shortage will end, there are some alternatives to consider in the meantime.
