 Like many moms, I have household rules that no other family member
understands.I have rules about the dishcloth being rinsed out and
hung on the faucet after use. I have rules about how to stack towels
after being washed and folded. I have mealtime rules intended to
expedite the vegetable eating.
Anyone who makes the rules has reasons, even if they are not
immediately apparent to the average human.
I don't like my dishcloth soaked in milk, coffee and soggy cereal
when I retrieve it from the bowels of my kitchen sink.
A mealtime rule is: If one doesn't clean one's plate, he must
clean the litter box. Well, he would if we had a litter box.
The towel stacking rule was put into effect simply because I like
the way my linen shelf looks with all the towels stacked fold-side
out. … So sue me.
Rule 1603 has recently been enacted: The front door is for guests
only. Everyone else must go through the garage and use the back
door.
I have perfectly good reasons for this.
Shoe chaos. In order to comply with Rule 857, my family must take
off their shoes when they enter the house. The collection of shoes
at my front door looked like a half-off sale at the Goodwill store.
Thus, the back door rule.
Drop-off zone. Whenever anyone comes in my house, they are
immediately and unexplainably hit with the strange urge to eject
their burdens. Whatever they are carrying at the time seems much too
heavy to carry further. I think there must be some sort of physics
phenomenon having to do with a sudden increase in gravity as you
enter my house. You can't fight physics, so I'd rather the
phenomenon occur at my back door rather than my front door.
Near the front door there is a crack in the wall that gets wider
every time the door is slammed. My children don't do anything
halfway. The door is either slammed shut or they don't close it at
all. Nothing says trailer-trash like your front door left wide open.
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 The lock on my front door will allow one to leave the house, but
not enter. This isn't ideal, because at the front door I can only
control the comings of my family, not the goings. At least, if a
guest knocks on the door, I don't have to unlock the door to open
it.
In the morning, before school, my 8-year-old remembered that he
left his backpack in the car. He went out the back door to retrieve
it. This boy is my youngest, and like many youngest children, he
exudes an air of authority that is not backed up by his short
stature. Instead of coming back through the back door, he came to
the front door and pounded on it until he persuaded someone to come
and open it.
My 14-year-old went to see who it was. Because he knew the rule,
and because he relished a chance to annoy his younger brother, he
refused to open the door and told him to go to the back door.
The youngest was still in control mode and started ordering the
older one to open the door. I told the son inside the house that he
needed to walk away and ignore him, because I knew that if there was
nobody to argue with, the little rule-breaker would eventually stop
beating on the door and simply use the back door.
Five minutes later, my husband had to leave for work. I
remembered a last-minute item I needed to give him and ran out the
front door in my bathrobe and bare feet just as he was rolling out
of the driveway. I caught him just in time. Relieved, I tiptoed
through the cold, wet grass back to the front door and realized I
had locked myself out.
I knocked, but I knew it was in vain. I had just told the only
one left in the house to ignore the knocking. I stood there, my bare
toes frosting over, shivering in my bathrobe at my own front door.
Rule 1603 might have to be revised.
[By LAURA SNYDER]
Laura Snyder is a nationally syndicated columnist,
author and speaker. You can reach her at
lsnyder@lauraonlife.com
or visit www.lauraonlife.com
for more info.
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