Parental rules
Any responsible parent sets down rules for their kids, right? No playing with matches, stay away from knives, no you can't put the cat in the dryer to watch her stagger around when she comes out...

Well, one of the rules I've set down in my house is "No food outside of the kitchen or dining room." Simply put, I got tired of dealing with dirty dishes all over the house and ambiguous stains on everything, so I set down this rule and didn't allow anyone to violate it.

One day my oldest son was laughing about the stuff the kids have gotten away with over the years that I knew nothing about, and he told me how they used to violate that rule all the time when I wasn't around. "This one time we had chips and salsa in the living room and spilled some on the couch, but by the time you got home we had it cleaned up and you never even knew!"

I smiled sweetly at him. "Well, since I put that rule in place because I didn't want stains all over and wanted to keep my house clean, I'd say it worked out just right."

He went from gloating about putting one over on dumb ol' Dad to looking like he'd just been conned in less than a second.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 17 Apr 2008, 16:33, Reply)