Each of these family rules is the product of some untellable story

So my daughter ran in front of a car last night at the local supermarket.  Admittedly it scared at least 5 years off of my life.  Hours after the event, my chest still hurt.

I was unloading returnables from the back of the Queen Family Truckster while my wife and son went along to gather a cart.  The four year old generally sticks very close to me whenever we take back returnables because she likes to help feed the disgusting, disease ridden bottle counter.  So she was right on my side, eagerly awaiting the Petri dish experience of counting returnables.  I turned to grab the last bag of bottles at the same moment she decided she wanted to go with her mom. So, darting from the lee of my considerable blind spot, she sprinted out into the lane of traffic like Jackie Robinson breaking for home.

Unfortunately she sprinted right into the path of a passing car that was less than ten feet from us.  It all happened so fast that the only thing I could do was to yell "STOP" in my dad voice.

The dad voice only comes out once in a while, and it never really works.  It is the voice that begins somewhere down around my groin, propels itself upward via a tightening of my diaphragm, surges through my neck like water rushing through a firehose and then explodes out of my mouth like a ship's horn.

Oh sure, without a doubt, it always seems to draw a crowd and inspire stares and the awkward looks of passing strangers, but it almost never works. It almost never ends up achieving the desired result.

Thank God, last night, it did.  My daughter froze in her tracks.  The woman driving the car, thinking I was yelling at her, stopped in her tracks.  People loading their groceries all over the parking lot froze mid-lift.  The sign flickering above the McDonald's half a block away stopping flickering.  A barking dog silenced himself in the back of a dirty pick up truck.

Thank God, all was safe.  I have to admit, without boasting, that there are probably only two really impressive things about me; I make a pretty mean steak on the grill, and the dad voice.

After the close call in the parking lot, my voice returned to normal except that it gave wings to yet another empty lecture about what one of our cardinal family rules is:  "The only purpose of walking through the parking lot is to get from the car to the door safely, nothing else matters if you can't manage that, take nothing for granted, one moment's inattention, blah blah blah..."  I wondered later if any of it sunk in.

That got me thinking about the cardinal rules in my house when I was a kid, and wondering if I ever listened to them.  They were almost always born of some unspeakable event.  My brothers, if they read this, will see the one about "blue shag carpet" and immediately remember a particular family incident which grew so greatly in our family lore that it even had its own name; "The day Dennis exploded..."

Yes, I am laughing hard writing this, but it has taken me 38 years to get to that point.  As a kid, being the kid who "exploded" at a gathering of Indian Guides was not good.  No one wants that on their "kid" resume.  I can hear my father now - "Who puts blue shag carpet in a bathroom when there are kids in the home?..."  And I also recall him asking me how "it" got on the ceiling.

Here, then, are a few of our family's rules - just the tip of the iceberg really, but they got us through some life learning events.  I already told you about the first one.

1)  "It is never a good idea to put blue shag carpet in a bathroom when kids are in the house."

2)  "We don't ever shoot BB guns in the house."

3)  "In the absence of matches, the stove is a poor alternative if you are trying to light a firecracker with a short fuse".

4)  "Despite what you see in the cartoons, a garbage bag or umbrella will not act like a parachute if you jump off the garage roof holding one."

5)  "Always check your speedo for holes BEFORE you get to the beach."

6)  "No matter how good it looks, a dog treat is never suitable for human consumption."

7)  "No toys at the table" - this rule has been revisited now that we are in the age of smartphones, facebook, and blogging.  For the record, my mom still tells us, her grown children, "No toys at the table."

8)  "Don't hold your sneezes in, especially if you have the runs." (neither my rule nor my words, but the wisdom in it I thought speaks volumes).

9)  "Words that make people defensive never work, it's a terrible way to communicate."  Actually this is a pretty good one.

10)  "Hands at 10:00 and 2:00, check your mirrors & gauges, keep your eyes in motion, leave yourself an escape route, drive like it's your family in the other car..." are also all proven ideas that work.

So thanks for stopping by my blog today. Whatever sun shines through your windows today, here's hoping that the rules that govern your roost make sense, to you, and are fun and enduring ones.