The tale of a string of bad luck. Today was Jacob’s day off. Finally, he would get to relax and have some time to visit the park and go for some ice cream. Jacob was a babysitter and he loved his job but he had been working so hard the last few days. He was so tired that he really looked forward to this one free day when he would do absolutely nothing but fun stuff.
To start off his day, he prepared his favorite cereal for breakfast, only to realize that there was no milk. He did not let this bring his day down. “A small hiccup to his day”, he thought. He took his dry cereal and went straight to the shower to get himself cleaned up. Shock on him, there was no warm water in the shower, he had to use cold water. Still he did not let this dampen his spirits.
He stepped out of his house heading straight for the amusement park. As he was jumping into the biggest ride he had seen, a young girl accidentally poured some juice on him. “What is happening to my day?”, he wondered. He wiped himself and got onto the ride; and you guessed it, as soon as the ride started, it got stuck midway that they had to wait for the repairmen to come and repair the ride.
When they were finally rescued from the stuck ride, he went straight to the restaurant to have some lunch. A scrumptious meal was prepared for him by the chef and he ate to his fill. For once, something right was happening to him. Jacob thought he was suffering a string of bad luck. When the bill came, he looked everywhere for his wallet but he could not find it; it looked like his wallet had been stolen. He tried explaining to them that he could pay them their money if only they allowed him to go home and get some but the restaurant owners would hear none of it.
To repay his debt, he was given some dishes to clean up. All afternoon he was scrubbing and cleaning up the dishes until he could not take it anymore. When no one was looking, he sneaked out of the kitchen and ran away. He went straight home, looking forward to finally just relaxing. Just when he was about to sit down, some police knocked on his door calling out for a thief who had just stolen some jewelry. The neighbor had just lost his jewelry and had identified someone looking like Jacob as the thief. The string of bad luck felt even more real at this point.
It took Jacob all night at the police station explaining to them what had happened during the day for them to believe that he was not part of the robbery at the neighbor’s house. And although they did not arrest him for stealing the jewelry, they arrested him for not paying the bill at the restaurant. The police called the restaurant owners to come in for an apology from Jacob and for the money that he owed for the meal he had eaten.
By the time he got home, it was already time to go for his babysitting job.
His free day turned out to be not so free.
Moral: No matter the circumstances, pay your debts.
