My friends love to chide me about the sliding scale I have regarding rules. I have some rules that I follow very rigidly. And there are others, ones that some people would call laws, that I don’t follow at all.
I don’t profess that there’s any logic behind it, but my rule book was definitely built on a sliding scale.
I didn’t really give it any thought until a week or so ago. During a gathering at the condo for the 4th of July, the topic of my rule book came up. And Jan blurted out that I adhere to what she calls, “Just Rules”, as in just those rules that I like.
I thought it a very funny line. And yes, I can let others be funnier than I am. It is one of the rules.
So, how does my rule book work?
First, let me say that no one on earth can follow all the rules. As my friend Jerry Ceis once said, there are so many laws on the books that even the most law abiding person on earth unknowingly breaks a dozen or so a day.
So you have to pick and choose the rules you’ll follow. And that sets the stage for the floating scale rule book.
For starters, I will speed, but never more than 10 miles per hour. I am religious in requiring everyone to wear a seatbelt. I make full stops at intersections and use my signal to change lanes. I pride myself on following the rules of the road. However, I don’t think twice about making an illegal U-turn and have definitely on more than one occasion have driven when I’ve had too much to drink (but I never go over the speed limit when I have – go figure).
When it comes to home life, if I am putting away the silverware, the teaspoons must be separated from the tablespoons. The same is true of forks and salad forks. It’s a rule. But I don’t require anyone else to do this if they are putting things away. It’s my rule, not theirs.
At the condo here, I got yelled at for flying a pirate flag on the balcony. I think the sticking point was that the pole was zip tied to the railing. Stupid rule. So I zip tied it to the day bed on the balcony instead and pushed it to the railing, knowing that it will still piss people off and they can do nothing about it because it is adhering to their rules, ever so slightly.
I don’t follow the rule of wearing shoes in the elevator or lobby here. I live at the beach. Who in the hell wears shoes? I am regularly singled out for it by others, the rule followers. The signage is clear, “Shoes and Shirts Required.” I always tell others that if they want me to follow this rule, I will. But that means shoes and shirt, but no bottoms.
Yes, my little sliding scale.
There is no rhyme or reason to any of it. For instance, once rigid rules that I have created or others have created and I chose to follow have fallen from grace now and then. In thinking about this, perhaps these rigid rules were only semi-rigid to begin with.
I think most of you will agree that we all do this. There are basic rules set out by society as a whole to keep us safe. For example, when they put that solid line on your side of the road, it is meant to tell you not to pass. There is a reason for this. Either it’s a blind corner, a bridge or other traffic condition that creates a dangerous situation. As such, I never cross that line or pass when they say not to pass. Only a fool will do it, and as we know the world is overflowing with fools. Let them get killed, not me.
And while Disney has taught all of us how to stand and move robotically through lines, I have been known to cut right to the front, particularly at the airport. But only when I’m not traveling. If I am flying, I get to the airport two hours ahead of time religiously. I don’t want to be one of those people who can’t seem to manage their personal time correctly or think they are so important that they are always in a rushing panic mode. I leave plenty of time to check in, wind my way through security and find my way to the plane.
However, when I went to pick up my son at the airport, I didn’t think it was necessary to stand in the long line of the coach travelers just so I could get the necessary documentation to go through security. Instead, I went around all of them to the First Class/Business counter. I know I’m supposed to wait patiently like the others, but I’m not really flying. I’m just picking up the kid. In the old days I could have just walked to the damned concourse.
As we all know, in our post 9/11 world, the airport is all about rules. I try to follow them. I don’t make any bomb or hijacking jokes, I remove my shoes and I make sure that my pockets are empty. Well, almost empty. I never take out my wallet and this actually tripped me up on my last visit to the airport.
For some reason, even though I am only picking up a minor child, I had to go through the new imaging machines there, the ones that can see through all your clothes. I don’t have a valid boarding pass, I couldn’t get onto any plane even if I wanted to, but I still had to do the naked x-ray thing. I didn’t know I had to remove my wallet. So I ended up getting frisked and swabbed, all in the name of following rules.
Now, you’d think a sliding rule kind of guy like me would throw a hissy fit at the airport about all this and take exception to it all. But I didn’t. It’s just another one of those stupid rules someone else thought up, and the path of least resistance is to follow it, move beyond it, and then make fun of it here instead, knowing that I will probably now be added to their “list” of troublemakers that need extra screening.
I’ll let you know how the cavity search goes.
Out on the Treasure Coast, wondering where the shoes I never wear here are,
– Robb