Five Rules I Don't Mind Breaking

We are, thankfully, a nation of laws, but I hope we will never become a nation of rules. Now, that is not to say we don't have any. We have rules a-plenty as anyone who has the slightest degree of awareness (that is, excepting infants, the comatose and Sarah Palin), can tell. But, while laws are meant to be upheld, rules, as they say, are meant to be broken.

When some people try to change rules into laws, the result is not always what most people want. For example, I am inclined to believe that the efforts of the un-anointed "food police" have gone about as far as they ought to. What is it we all used to sing in grade school? "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty?" Yeah, I think that's how it went.

On one hand, I try to obey the law, and, if you discount the detail that I, like one or two (hundred million) others, seldom drive at the speed limit, I am a reasonably law-abiding citizen. That said, one of my favorite bits of rule-breakage is technically a violation of the law.

On the other hand, I do not treat every rule with contempt. For example, when I am "treading the boards," I follow all the rules of the stage as best I can, among them:

1) Don't block people who are behind you on the stage.

2) Don't lay a finger on someone else's prop, unless you have to set it.

3) Do not mention "The Scottish Play" by name (unless you're performing it).

4) Theater: 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration; shower beforehand.

5) Never fart out loud during a soliloquy, even your own.

There are, to be sure, a number of rules that I break, even in the course of trying to live by the Golden Rule. To live a life of no rule-breakage whatsoever must be a very bleak existence indeed. A number of these petty violations are accidental, but I can think of five that I do with malice aforethought and no small degree of enjoyment. Here they are in the crucial order of when I thought of them.

1. Close your mouth when you burp.

Ha! I violate this one with impunity. My mother, an otherwise strict lady, gave up early on any notion she could cure me of this predilection. I will not only take pleasure in vocalizing my burps, I will frequently verbalize them as well.

During that part of my time in the Army when our first sergeant was a guy known as The Frog, on all but his name-tag, not only I, but everybody in the unit constantly verbalized every passage of northbound gas with "Ribbit, ribbit!" That especially held true when The Frog was within earshot.

Oh, and do not think for a moment this is a custom the violation of which is frowned on in the theatrical community. I have run into at least two ladies who could, and often did, let them rip in a volume approaching a chainsaw at full throttle.

2. Take your hat off indoors.

There are times when you have to do this, if you are a guy. Just about any Christian church and the Army will insist on that. In more casual situations, where the custom is not so strongly entrenched, my philosophy is basically this: if you can provide me with a secure place where I can put my hat, then retrieve it without having to pay someone a gratuity, I will treat you to a full-on view of my salt-and-pepper hair. If you cannot provide that, the hat stays on. This is more a practical consideration than a small act of rebellion.

3. Park squarely between the lines.

Yes, if I am in the middle of a parking lot, I will try to do just that, but, whenever possible, I will look for a free space next to a handicapped space and park there, quite asymmetrically, and deliberately so.

In those instances when I get the chance to take such a space, I put my wheels right on the edge of the white line that separates my space from the restricted space. I do it, not out of malice, but for a number of practical reasons, the most important one of which is, I am giving someone else who is actually going to use the space on the other side as much leeway as possible. Let me emphasize here, I cannot remember the last time a handicapped space I parked next to was actually taken by a handicapped driver. And, even if that were to happen, there is typically a buffer that further separates and expands the restricted space in relation to the others.

4. Don't tailgate

This is a serious rule, of course, involving peoples' safety. To be sure, I do not seriously tailgate. Most often, if I am very close to the car in front of me, it is because I am stuck in some sort of gridlock, and none of us are moving at anything faster than a snail's pace, and a badly hung-over one at that.

On the other hand, I will drive closer than the driver's instruction manual says you should when I sense the car beside me is looking to make the classical jerk play: cut between me and the car in front of me with no warning or signal. Sometimes, on those rare occasions I have let it happen to me, I'll get the turn signal after the jerk has already insinuated his car into my space.

Now, mind you, if you are driving beside me and you display the common decency of flashing me a turn signal to indicate you want or need to get into the lane I'm using, I will be the soul of accommodation. All too often, though, the clown beside me thinks that, if he tips his hand, I will not let him in, so he will rely on the element of surprise. If I see a vehicle driving beside me in a space somewhat between me and the car in front of me, when there's plenty of room for him pull ahead, I get suspicious. At that point, I will close the gap to the point where the cut-off planner will either have to speed up beyond me (which is fine) or tap his brakes and fall in behind me. I will not allow him to cut me off.

This may sound dangerous, but I have never had an accident doing it, and I have, on occasion, really pissed off a number of jerks who thought they were going to get over on me.

5. Illegal gambling is wrong

Yes, I suppose it is and certainly if it is carried to extremes. I think it is awfully hypocritical of our society to aggressively encourage legalized gambling, while it frowns on those forms of it from which its leaders do not get their cut. Mind you, I was a member of the pathetically-outnumbered minority who voted against slot machines in Maryland , when the issue came up in 2008.

For a decade, when I lived in Washington , DC , I hosted a bi-weekly Thursday night poker game. It was on the nickel-dime-quarter level and I don't think, in the whole time, anyone won or lost more that fifty dollars a night-and even that would have been an extremely rare occurrence.

This, unlike the out-loud burping, was not something I did just to be contrary. Not only did it provide a pleasant way to spend an evening with friends, it netted me a few hundred dollars a year. No, I do not claim to have the skills of Amarillo Slim. My strategy was to freeze out the people who could outplay me and make those who could not feel like the truly welcome guests they were.

I enjoy poker and I enjoy money. I dealt from an honest deck, so there was no fraud or theft involved, other than the fraud of a successfully-executed bluff. If the cards didn't fall my way on a given night, as sometimes happened (I actually lost $40.00 on the supposedly luckiest day of the century: 7/7/77.), I took my beating in stride, as did the other players who had a bad night. I apologize to no one for my petty illegality, and since the statute of limitations has long since expired, I don't care who knows about it.

I do not for a moment want to give the impression that I am someone who otherwise is the epitome of perfection when it comes to rules and manners. There are some things I ought not to do that I do in spite of myself. The biggest single thing I can think of is that I am an interrupter.

I grew up in an articulate, outspoken family, and, if you wanted to have your say, you needed to pounce and pounce quickly at the slightest opening. At that, the most frequent topic of conversation around out dinner table was, "Stop interrupting me!"

As a result of this upbringing and because it is my nature, when someone is speaking, I will frequently mistake a comma for a period and jump in with my $0.02 before the speaker has had a chance to complete the thought.

As for the possible social opprobrium over those rules I deliberately like to flaunt, I think I got my attitude from my mother. For years, she used to worry a lot about how our family looked to other people, and that was probably a useful thing in providing my brother and me with a sound upbringing.

Years after I had grown up and left the house, I noticed, on a return visit, that my mother was a lot less tense and more accepting of the world as she found it. When I mentioned I thought she had changed somehow, she replied, "Yes, I've finally stopped being wanted by the FBI." I knew what she meant. And, ever since that day, the FBI has been off my case as well.

Sources

Own experience