Bimbo or Billionaire: Payday or Paisa
Prologue
Stephanie wanted to travel the world. And she did. She was a fantastically unaware spoiled rich girl who didn’t know that she was rich and didn’t know that traveling the world meant respecting other cultures. Between her sophomore and junior year in college, she traveled with other girlfriends to be gold diggers during Yacht Week in Croatia and drank and partied at everyone else’s expense. After her junior year, she traveled around the world on her parent’s money in exotic places: Dubai, St. Tropez, and even did a privileged yoga retreat to India, which she didn’t enjoy because she looked down on anyone who was poor. But as she continued in school, her good looks and her desire to be seen at the right parties increased her risk tolerance for making bad decisions. She didn’t mind getting loud, wasted, or recreationally doing drugs. Sometimes, she just got plain ‘ratchet.’ Just as long as she was surrounded with beautiful people, partied abroad with only Americans, and put the appropriate photos on Instagram, she thought that she was truly living.
It all came crashing down when she was partying in South America on spring break of her senior year in college. She was at a party with twenty other Americans being loud and bouncing around at a discoteca loaded on party drugs. Police were called because of how loud and destructive the afterparty was to shut down it down. The Americans there had insulted bartenders, started fights with locals, and someone even haggled with a local hooker. Local authorities pinned the drug supplying at the rooftop afterparty on Stephanie. And it was true. In her desire to climb the greasy pole of ‘status,’ she had brought everything that was necessary to party. It had never been a problem before! Nobody ever suspected the innocent-looking blonde, pretty, skinny white girl who acted like everyone’s ‘girl-next-door.’
How does punishment for something like this work? Would she serve time in a foreign country? That might be bad headlines for everyone involved. After she was found guilty, local authorities considered their options and ultimately decided on the most internationally-appropriate punishment.
“So, you want me to be a contestant on a game show? That’s my sentence?” Stephanie asked.
“Precisely. You need to earn at least $100,000, in your currency, to pay your sentence” the authorities communicated.
“But what if I don’t win that amount?” Stephanie inquired.
“The televised game show is welcomed into the homes of many overseas and outside of your country. In a way, the game show is a common language. We treat this crime very seriously and we believe that in the event that you aren’t able to win this amount on the show, this is the best way to send a message to the broader world about how to be a proper guest when you’re traveling abroad here in our country.”
“It’s a little ridiculous that I can’t pay for it out of pocket, but if I can’t, I don’t think there’s any other way around it.”
“The example you set is the reason it’s the only way to serve your sentence. You’ll travel to the game show in the morning. Buena suerte.”