The Woman Is Required To Pay, also known as TWIRP week, has been a tradition on the CBU campus for many years. It is commonly talked about weeks before the events are said to occur, and planning begins much around the same time, leaving many people searching for creative ideas and future prospects.
Adriana Galloway contemplated how to ask her boyfriend to TWIRP for quite some time. She sought the advice of her roommates, but she had no idea how to ask him in a way that was cute and different from other TWIRP invites.
Then, one day, she realized she would make him fortune cookies from scratch (since they were his favorite), and the fortune inside would be the TWIRP invitation.
This poses the question: Do guys like it when a girl is being cute and creative?
Senior music education major Jonathan Jorge and senior Christian studies major Alex Wright do. Their girlfriends surprised them with a TWIRP invitation at dinner one night, something neither of them were expecting.
“Lisette and Jessica Miller made Alex and me a cheesecake — which she knows I like — and decorated it like a baseball to ask us to the baseball game. … I thought it was very cute and really liked the idea cause I like food and especially cheesecake,” Jorge said.
This year, tickets sold out two weeks before any of the events were scheduled to take place. For some women, asking their boyfriends was simple.
“Mitch is my boyfriend of seven months, and so I obviously knew he would say yes,” said Kaitlyn Persky, freshman kinesiology major.
With her boyfriend participating in the Smith Hall Olympics, Persky thought of the perfect opportunity to ask her boyfriend to TWIRP.
“We went to Michael’s and both got green shirts so we could both match with 1B written on the front, and I told him I would put our last names on the back like a baseball shirt,” Perksy said. However, instead of putting their last names, Persky wrote an invitation toTWIRP.
Printed on the shirt were the words “Mitchell … TWIRP?” followed by a “Just TWIRPED” response on her boyfriend’s shirt.
Persky hid the shirts in her dorm room until just before the Olympics started. Up until that point, Mitchell Stockton had no idea his girlfriend would be asking him to TWIRP.
“I gave him a hug and said `Do you like my shirt?’” and turned around for him to read it,” Persky said. “He obviously said yes, and so I give him his. He read his and loved it.”
For others, asking guys to TWIRP was more of a hunt — a scavenger hunt. Sophomore creating writing major Taylor Morris and sophomore public relations major Jessica Bills asked their two friends via clues that lead the men on a winding scavenger hunt across campus.
“We shaped the clues as flags and had six of them. Get it? Six Flags!” Morris said.
With the girl’s TWIRP destination in mind, they sent the guys on a hunt to find the final clue, hoping they would understand the symbolism behind the flag-shaped clues.
“They had to go to the caf, the seal, the fourth story of the James building, the theater and finally Fortuna fountain,” Morris said.
Bills and Morris were waiting at the fountain, where they jumped out of the bushes when the guys arrived, ending the final clue and asking the guys to TWIRP.
With activities all week long, such as Six Flags Magic Mountain, Barn dance and Amore those interested in TWIRP can experience multiple events with their date. The traditions of TWIRP week do not stop once someone has been asked but carry on through the rest of the week.
