Do-Bees and Don't-Bees: Rules Our Parents Made Up

EttaRose's Humor Bloggers comedy carnival had asked posters to talk about two topics, one of which was "Rules Our Parents Made Up."

While I've already entered a different post for the Carnival, I thought I'd also try to more directly address the topic here. For one, because I'm the kind of giant nerd who actually enjoys playing by the rules...

And also because I couldn't think of anything else to post for today.


My parents liked rules. With the amount of rules I had growing up in the 70s and early 80s, you'd think there were unruly tribes of Saxons, Celts, Huns and Goths duking it out in our livingroom on a regular basis....

Sweeping in wearing blue face paint... brandishing broadswords... and slinging morning stars... with only the "Don't" list to keep them from wiping out the home furnishings.

Alas, it was just me, and I rarely wore the face paint.

But, yes, the rules were what kept my home separated from chaos. Or, like, a social life. But the rules during this time took two forms. Spoken Rules, and Unspoken Rules. I'll go with the spoken ones first.


SPOKEN RULES
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The Two Bite Rule. New foods were automatically given the two-bite rule. You dish yourself a very small amount of it, you take two bites of it, see how you like it. And if you don't like it, you don't have to eat any more of it.

Until, of course, Mom tries to sneak it into your meals in some other way later, to trick you into eating it. Because you might just only think you don't like it, but you probably do. Yes, you do. Really. You do. No, really. Just eat it.

Bedtime is Not Subject to Advanced Inter-party Negotiation. I learned this straight off. Bedtime was bedtime. Try as I might, amendments to policy were not to be made "Just for this one Magnum P.I. episode which ran late because Jimmy Carter got chatty in his State of the Union address."

Or "Only to see how Ricardo Montalban cracks down the Lei-trimmed hammer of poetic justice on Fantasy Island this week."

Bedtime was bedtime. Period. No sneaky glasses of water as a stall tactic, either. Go to sleep.


Homework First. Godzilla After. Ah, I think I can attribute my good grades largely to this rule. See, Godzilla was often on the "4 o'clock Movie" on WWOR-TV. And if it wasn't Godzilla, it was Planet of the Apes. Or giant ants stomping a city. Or War of the Worlds.

Basically I was guaranteed something large and scaly would be trying to crush Life as We Know It. Which any kid knows, is seriously cool. So, this was well-worth investing time in stupid things like homework, and studying, in order to see.

I bet much of the New Jersey educational system had a strong foundation in Godzilla. I don't think studies have been done, but perhaps they should have.


Children Are to be Seen and Not Heard. Yes, Dad was kickin' it Old School. It was a favorite phrase.

But what I've come to learn as an adult is, that Dad just really likes to talk, and gets a runaway train-like momentum going. You don't even have to really interact with him, as long as you're physically in the room and you nod sometimes.

In fact, he's been known to lecture on a topic for up to 3 hours straight without real input from the other parties in the room. Or water. Or oxygen. (I use this time to catch up on magazines.) So this is less of an ageist thing than I'd ever realized. The Pop just really enjoys an audience.


Thou Shalt Practice Piano a Half Hour Every Day. Now, to the adult brain, a half hour is nothing. It's a quick lunch break. A conference call. How long it takes to figure out how Entrecard works.

But to a kid brain? A half hour could hold... oh, a fist full of jellybeans, three Underdog cartoons, jigsaw puzzle sorting, jump-roping, a game of jacks, a costume change for Barbie, destruction of the Death Star, and two elaborate blueprints for a Secret Clubhouse. That's a LOT of fun things that don't involve Beethoven.


UNSPOKEN RULES
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My parents also had a lot of unspoken rules, that became more apparent to me the longer I hung out with them. I thought I might share just a few of them here today.


Don't Ever Not Know Where You Are. My dad had this habit of, if we were out somewhere in the car, announcing:

"I don't know where we are, Jenn. We're lost! Do you know where we are? You have to get us home!"

Of course, I was, like, seven at the time, and could get lost playing "Pin the Tail on the Donkey."

I didn't know geography. Because I lived in a town called Dover, I thought the mountain across the street was the White Cliffs. (No really, I did.)

Dad, of course- in the perverse way of teasing family members-- thought my panic about logistics to be huge blockbuster entertainment.

He'd say, "Jenn, we're counting on you to navigate us home!" And there'd be me crying and thinking I was never going to see my stuffed animals, again because I'd failed to be the family Magellan.

Family can be a riot sometimes, can't they?

Nowadays, of course, a kid in the same position could just say, "What-- you don't know how to work the GPS, Pop?" But it was a tougher existence in the 70s and 80s. Let's call it character-building.

So now, when Dad visits me and I'm driving him around obscure sections of Pittsburgh, I enjoy asking him, "Dad, where are we? Do YOU know where we are? You have to get us home."

I've since received an apology for my childhood, by the way. You can't buy that sort of therapy.


Never Lie About Anything You Can't 100% Get Away With. Somewhere along the way, my mother had convinced me she could read my mind. Though, mostly, it was just because whatever I was thinking was written in scented-markers all over my face.

My cousin Sauce has the same issue. Maybe it's hereditary. But anything we think, you can pretty much read in our expressions. This is what makes us a hazard in poker games and client meetings...

This is why neither of us will be starting a career in politics.

Anyway, Mom could always tell whenever I was lying, so eventually, I gave it up entirely unless under extreme circumstances. Like grades.

My mother also belonged to the Inter-District Mom Grapevine Network. It was an early form of an online chatroom, only Real World and involving things like PTA meetings, parent teacher conferences and giving the Spanish Inquisition to my friends' mothers.

Through this Network, rumor, theory and information were collected and distributed amongst the parents. Nowadays, it'd be in database format with password protection.


So tell me, folks-- did you have any similar rules? What were the big "Beware, All Ye Who Enter Here" topics in your household growing up?

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Dinero Stupido -or- Chimichangas de la Casanova

I have a Public Service Announcement to make to you good folks. But I must do it in the form of a flashback.

When my friend Debbie and I were at Epcot for a conference-- and yes, this was the same day I totally, publicly freaked out on the family of Butt Scoochers at Epcot's Test Track-- we decided to have dinner at the Mexican Pavilion. We figured we could do a little shopping in the bazaar, go have a margarita or two... eat... and watch people come out of the ride shouting, "Mio Dios, please make that song stop!"

(The song, at the end of the Mexico ride, really IS one step away from the "It's a Small World" theme. We got stuck in that ride once, right at the end. After ten minutes of that singing loop of Mexican puppet children, it's a wonder we didn't leap out of that boat and run for the border ourselves.)

Anyway. So Deb and I were having our margaritas, and the waiter started chatting with us. Initially, we figured he was just friendly, because, you know, it's Disney. It's not the DMV or the gas company. No, these people were PAID to be friendly there. Everyone's really wonderful. They're genetically designed to be.

So our waiter asked us what brought us there, how we were enjoying our stay, and what we planned to see later.

Now after a day of walking around, we really just wanted to get down to business and order. But hey, it had been so long since either of us had seen good customer service outside of Mouseville, Deb and I figured it was very possible that we just didn't know what that looked like anymore.

So we talked a bit, and Deb told him we'd probably head over to the nightclubs at "Pleasure Island." Then we promptly forgot all about it.

Soon, the waiter came back to check on us. Judging by the level of my margarita, it really hadn't been more than five minutes or so. This round of conversation involved asking more questions about our conference, when we were going back home, and where home was. It would have been okay, only the questions were fairly detailed, and this guy had a lot of other tables to wait on.

Deb and I exchanged raised eyebrows.

Eighth of a margarita later, why, here was our waiter friend again! And Deb and I started to get the sense that our middle-aged waiter was either just a little too into his work or he was using his role at the Mexican pavilion to pick up chicas. This theory was further reinforced when he asked us our names.

Now while I have the utmost respect for servers and the pains they go through to deal with the grimy public, I also don't really think I need to be on... oh... their Christmas card list. Not, at least, for just one evening of seafood chimichangas (no matter how yummy they were-- and, actually, they were really yummy).

So in a blatant, wholly-unconvincing lie, I looked at my waiter and said, "My name's Rachel."

Rachel was the name of my first mystery story's heroine. It is the only name I can ever think of quickly. I am a truly terrible liar, so on those few rare occasions fake names are called for, I am Rachel. It's best to keep it simple, I think.

Our waiter then turned to Debbie and Debbie said, "I'm Debbie." Because, you know, Debbie isn't my friend's real name, anyway.

So we, Rachel and Debbie finished our margaritas and enjoyed a lovely meal, including the aforementioned yummy chimichangas.

As we were winding up dinner, our waiter came back once again. Was there anything else he could get us? Were we sure? Fine, great and...

Oh, so what time would we be stopping over at Pleasure Island? How long would we be there? Was there any particular club we were going to? Because you know, HE was thinking of popping by there himself after work and...

It was Rachel, wasn't it?... And Debbie?

I have to admit, in my plans for my one evening in The Happiest Place on Earth, hanging out with the waiter from the Mexican Pavilion hadn't really crossed my mind. Though, perhaps, this is why I'm still single.

Anyway, Debbie mumbled something vaguely about not being sure when we'd be where, about how she'd be meeting her husband first-- her husband who was, in fact, thousands of miles away settling down to the Steelers game.

The waiter said, well, maybe he'd bump into us over there, and he gave us the check.

That's when we realized neither of us had much cash.

Nope, Debbie and Rachel were going to have to use the ol' credit cards, oh yes!

And so, the moral of the story, my friends, is: if you're going to lie about your name to someone, make sure they are also not the person who has to run your credit card through with your name emblazoned all over it.

Don't be like Debbie and Rachel.

Hasta luego, amigos.


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